


A Constant Work in Progress

by onceuponamoon



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bandom Big Bang 2013, Community: bandombigbang, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Original Character(s), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamoon/pseuds/onceuponamoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank spends his time at Cedar Creek Elementary sucking at answering the phones, playing nurse, spinning in his chair, and avoiding glares from Principal Bryar.  </p><p>His life gets turned upside down when his cousin Dani gets thrown in jail and he suddenly has custody of her three kids.  Frank copes with the abrupt change with help from his mother, his friends, and this Gerard guy that he (sometimes literally) can't seem to quit running into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Constant Work in Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to Chelsea for the beta and Patty for the encouragements. Check out the [Masterpost](http://bandombigbang.dreamwidth.org/18868.html) for the beautifully crafted fanmix by [abtagrl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/abtagrl/pseuds/abtagrl)! Leave that girl some love.

Okay, so the deal is Frank _knows_ he sucks at his job. He knows that and he’s accepted it as a cold, hard fact about himself. He is thoroughly cognizant of (based on the way the teachers glare anytime they come in through the teacher’s lounge and the way Principal Bryar does zen breathing routines anytime Frank so much as glances in his general direction or looks like he’s about to touch something) the obvious room for improvement. 

After he drops a stack of inquiries to the floor for the sixth time with a hissed, “ _Shit_ ,” Frank is abso-fuckin’-lutely aware.

When he’d applied for a teaching position at Cedar Creek Elementary, he’d figured he would be a shoo-in since he knew Bryar from back in their music scene days – Bob had teched for a band that Pencey had opened for – but apparently knowing the principal doesn’t mean jack shit if you haven’t got the experience. 

Which is bullshit because Frank _has_ the work experience. It’s just in daycares and nannying and, way back when, babysitting the pair of identical little she-devils that thought his mohawk looked great decked out in glitter each day after school. Sure, he hasn’t quite been in a teaching setting, per se, aside from the very basic counting to ten with the twins, but he has the schooling and a tiny, _tiny_ bit of TA experience from that. And of course that was with high schoolers. (It was a terrible time in Frank’s life and he’d prefer to never repeat the experience ever again, thanks.)

All of that had basically been for naught, because when he’d come in and interviewed with Bob, he’d mostly sighed a lot and said, “Frankie...” and some other stuff about his “lack of experience” and the way he’s “rough around the edges and on the inside too, for that matter” or whatever. Honestly, Frank was surprised that he even got a call back at all.

So, in the end, Frank had landed a part time Kindergarten Assistant Teacher position for the afternoons for second semester, depending on how well he does with handling his duties for the first semester: playing nurse up front and answering phones. Bob had told him he wasn’t _technically_ the secretary, but Frank’s feeling pretty fucking secretarial every fucking time the phone rings. 

“Tykes and Toddlers, this is – ah, shit, this isn’t Tykes and Toddlers, oh, my god.” He definitely just said “shit” on the school line. Frank is going to hell. First he’s going to get fired, because he can feel Bryar’s glare even through the closed door to his office, and _then_ Frank’s going to hell. “This is actually Cedar Creek Elementary. Hah. How can I help you?” 

The other line crackles, like the person huffed a laugh, and then a man says, “Um, yeah, this is Turner’s dad. I got a voicemail a few minutes ago saying that she’s not feeling well?”

Turner. Turner Way, the little badass that puts Frank in his place just about every afternoon when he calls them inside from recess for craft time. Today, she came up front, cleared her throat, and went, “Excuse me,” like a polite little person thing. It was so cute. “Ah, yeah...she was showing me her skull barrette. That’s badass, dude. Anyway –” 

Mr. Way cuts Frank off with his frantic questions of, “Is she running a fever? Vomiting? Does she have diarrhea?” that make him sound like he’s beating himself up more than anything. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her with Mikey last night, she probably ate so much candy, ugh –”

“Whoa, whoa, dude.” Shit, Frank just called him dude. But seriously, he sounds like he’s about to combust. Frank turns on his charming voice, because he’s heard from unbiased parties that it has quite the soothing effect. “No, she just said that her head hurt. So I checked her records to make sure she didn’t have any allergies. I saw that she had a few meds already in the nurse’s office with her name on ‘em, so I let her have one of the Tylenol.”

He can practically hear the weight leaving the dude’s shoulders as he sighs and then says, “Awesome, okay. Good. Yes, okay.” Frank wonders if he needs to send an ambulance anyway. “Is she okay now?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s good. I’ve got her lying in the dark, so she might be napping. I’ll get her up in about fifteen minutes and send her back to class.”

Mr. Way sighs again, mumbles something to himself, and then points out, “You know, you probably shouldn’t call parents ‘dude.’”

Sighing, Frank says, “Yeah, I’m aware,” and then admits, “I’m new at this,” because he doesn’t want to seem like he’s always this testy.

“I figured,” the guy says sort of haughtily. “You kind of suck.”

“Yeah, well.”

“What’s your name?” he asks.

Frank barks a laugh, because this guy is sort of a douchebag when he’s not all worried about his daughter. “Frank.”

“Well, Frank,” he says, sounding much more professional and a lot less panicked, “it’s been a pleasure. Please call me if she needs me to pick her up.” 

“Will do,” Frank replies and then hangs up.

The receiver hasn’t even fully settled into the cradle before Bryar’s door opens and, lo and behold, Bob stands in the doorway, arms crossed as he looms. Frank, because he values his life and isn’t a fucking lemming, goes on about his business reorganizing and restacking the papers he’d scattered over the desk. If he ducks his head, the partition is just tall enough that Frank can validly claim that he can’t see Bob standing there.

Bryar clears his throat.

Frank sighs, drops the papers (again), and covers his face with his hands. “Dude, I _know_. You don’t have to say anything.”

Shaking his head all kinds of disapprovingly, Bryar gives Frank a look that says, “You’d better fucking try harder next time, so help me god,” and closes his door back.

The inquiry papers take a little more time to reorganize than Frank had originally thought, so after about half an hour, when he’s finally got everything straightened, he remembers that – “God dammit.” – he was supposed to send Turner back to class fifteen minutes ago. By then, it’s about half an hour more until lunch, so Frank figures that he may as well let the poor kid get a little bit more rest. He used to get headaches all the time as a kid, and there was nothing that helped as much as a nap on the cot in Ms. Sherry’s office.

Answering each subsequent phone call with slightly more tact, Frank wiles away the meantime filling out those inquiries, recording them in the logs, and filing about a quarter of the stack of papers on his desk. By then, the ruckus from the cafeteria surpasses the silence of the teachers’ lounge and filters into the front office, barely muffled through the walls. 

He opens the door to the sick room, a tiny three by five with a row of cabinets, a tiny bed with the thinnest mattress Frank’s ever seen, and a trash can. The light slants onto the foot of the bed, Turner’s tiny feet splayed across the faded striped sheets illuminated as the door creaks open. She’s all little and precious and _such_ a little shit that seeing her asleep like this, with her little cheeks pink beneath her ridiculously long eyelashes, is almost misleading. Her face is practically cherubic it’s so fucking innocent. He can only guess where she gets that from.

“Turner,” Frank calls. She doesn’t stir, so he takes another step in and shakes her foot. “Get up, kiddo. It’s lunch time.”

Apparently those are the magic words, because Turner springs up, all wide green eyes, like she hadn’t been sleeping in the first place. “Are we having pasghetti?”

Nodding, Frank offers out his arm so that she can climb down safely. “Spaghetti and meatballs, indeed. Oh, hey,” he says, “careful there. Your shoe’s untied.” With her reluctant permission, Frank hoists her back up onto the bed and kneels on the floor, one knee up for her to place her shoe on. He exaggerates each step of the shoe-tying process, and he knows Turner would never admit it, but she raptly watches his every move, the tip of her tongue peeking out and her brows furrowed in concentration.

Finishing up with a double knot, Frank makes ta-da hands and says, “Voilà.” She smiles and thanks him and then goes on to ask about a million and a half questions in between the time Frank gets her back down to the floor and walks her to the lunch room.

Turner stops mid-sentence and dashes to her friends in line, a weird little dude named Tison and a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Stepford-spawn girl named Kylie. The gym teacher, Saporta, shouts, “ _¡Parada!_ ” and all of the little kids laugh, but he gets onto Turner and sends her to the back of the line. 

“Frank, hey.”

Hands in his pockets, Frank wheels around and comes face to face with Patrick. “Hello, Mr. Stump. Lovely weather we’re having.” He’s a little dude like Frank, only they’re kind of polar opposites, what with the way Stump genuinely says shit like, “Holy smokes!” even when there aren’t children around.

Patrick looks a little confused, because it’s overcast and windy as fuck, but he gives Frank a half-smile anyway. “Right.” 

“I was...kidding. Obviously. Anyway,” Frank says, grinning, “what’s today’s torture?”

Patrick grins and pushes his glasses up before he starts going on excitedly about nursery rhymes and this awesome book he got from a new store on the other side of town. There’s passion in his words, in his gestures, and the way he moves from nursery rhymes to teaching them the difference between circles and squares after crafts this afternoon and then starting the alphabet next week. Frank can totally see how he got the job.

Frank assists in wrangling the kids up for recess, spends that whole twenty minutes talking with Saporta about the upcoming shows this weekend and listening to all the tattles – which is more entertaining than Frank lets on, because there is nothing funnier than a kid’s face than when they’re tugging on his pant leg, looking moments away from imploding if they don’t get, “Sammy tripped Jessie!” out in the next ten seconds. Gabe says shit like, “The grown-ups are talking,” and waves them off, but Frank likes to take their complaints into careful consideration and attempt democracy with the kiddos.

It’s easier said than done, of course. Especially when this little douchenozzle spawn leads the pack, knocking kids down and shoving them from the top of the Big Toy or kicking them while he’s on the monkey bars. 

Recess ends with a ceremonious whistle and the kids file indoors, windblown and sweaty, some pouting while others still shout excitedly with their friends. Frank waves goodbye to all the kids and takes the long, lonely walk up the hall toward the front office.

He plays nurse twice more that afternoon, once for a little boy in Pre-K who bumped his head and then for a fifth grader who is an alarming shade of green. Thankfully, the kid doesn’t puke before his mom gets there and Frank lets out a sigh of relief. He goes back to filing and answering phones and trying not to fuck up.

At three o’clock on the dot, Frank starts the announcements for buses arriving, allowing the kids that get picked up by their parents to head toward the north parking lot, and those in the after school program to file into the cafeteria. The last bus leaves a good twenty minutes later, and Frank sighs with relief when he’s finally able to stop answering phones and finish up the day’s paperwork.

Knocking lightly on the doorframe to Bob’s office, Frank asks “Need anything before I go?”

Bob shakes his head, not even looking up from the stack of reports he’s scanning, so Frank gives a two-finger salute and takes his leave.

 

*

 

Home is considerably more peaceful in comparison. 

With his dogs curled up at his feet, Frank blasts shit to smithereens on his PS3 for a couple of hours before he’s hungry enough to bother cooking dinner. They’re at his heels the whole time he’s in the kitchen, whining for bits of veggies as they snap and sizzle in the pan. He sets water boiling and keeps working on the veggies, adding cayenne and minced garlic until it smells so unbearably good that he cuts the cook-time a little early. He likes his veggies crunchy anyway and the dogs don’t seem to mind either.

After feeding and walking the dogs one last time, Frank settles in for the night. For the rest of the evening, he curls up on the couch with his Kindle, a couple of beers, and his puppies with the television on for background noise. It’s not quite a wild night on the town, but it’s what he needs after the week he’s had. There are only so many times he can fuck up before it really starts getting to him.

It’s not like – he _knows_ he’s not the shittiest receptionist in the whole east coast or anything, because he’s spoken to quite a few with either zero personality or a brusque demeanor to know that he at least hasn’t hit rock bottom. It’s just…he’s just a little rough around the edges is all. But then again, he shouldn’t even _be_ a fucking receptionist. He has a BA in Elementary Education – and yet everywhere he applied turned him down for one reason or another, most claiming the same “lack of experience” that Bob had.

“It’s probably the tattoos,” he mumbles to himself, “or maybe it’s the shitty attitude toward authority figures.”

Bob had wilted at the, “How will I get any experience if nobody will take a chance on me?” so really, Frank knows he has to count his blessings.

Around nine o’clock, Frank’s just about finished feeling sorry for himself, so he nurses one last beer while he drafts a blog entry and then fucks around on his guitar playing some Morrissey before he turns in for the night.

 

*

 

It’s just about two AM when Frank gets the call.

His phone vibrates on his mattress, the screen lighting the vicinity with a picture of his mom’s face. After grumbling a, “Hello?” the first thing Frank hears is a long, exhausted sigh.

“Frankie?”

“Mom?” he sits up, woozy from head-rush and remnants of beer-buzz. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she soothes, sounding stressed despite her words. “It’s um. It’s your cousin Daniela. She’s in county right now. Apparently she’s gotten into some trouble. It doesn’t look good, honey.”

Growing up, Daniela had always been Frank’s favorite cousin. She was only a few years older and instead of treating Frank like an invalid like the rest of their cousins, Dani always grabbed Frank by the hand and bullied the others into letting him participate in whatever game they were playing. She taught him how to play the Fender his dad gave him when he turned eleven. She gave him his first cigarette at twelve, his first beer at thirteen, took him to his first New York show at fourteen. She was the first person he ever came out to.

Dani got kicked out by his aunt when she turned sixteen and admitted to having had sex with her boyfriend, so Frank’s mom took her in. Frank hadn’t completely understood the situation until a scant eight months later, out popped Curtis. Frank’s mom had tried her best to get Dani on her feet, but she left – just packed her bags and her baby and fucking _vanished_. 

For the longest time, Frank had been angry. His dad had left and then, even after his mom had helped her so tremendously, Dani just _left_. Like it wasn’t a fucking big deal at all. Like she could get a place, a job, and daycare for her baby. Like she actually had the gall to resent them for what they did for her.

Since then, though, she’s oscillated between having her shit together and being a total wreck. Out of the blue, she’d called Frank up – and it’d been a good seven years since she’d ducked out on them – and asked if he could meet for lunch. Dani brought Curtis, who’d just turned six, and a tiny, brown-skinned bundle named Carter, sporting a giant rock on her ring finger and a story about how she met her husband the Marine. She’d gotten her nurse aide license, gotten her shit together, moved into a place that was almost nice. Frank had been blindsided but proud. From there, visits got fairly regular. She came to Frank’s graduation ceremony, had taken a picture with him and everything. He met Shannon the tall, dark, and handsome Marine. A few years later, she had Corey (“Corey Frank,” she’d said, laid up in the hospital bed all sweaty and red-faced and smiling like Frank had never seen before, “after my favorite little cousin. He’s gonna hate me as much as you hated your dad.”) and had finally worked her way up to becoming a licensed practical nurse. Frank thought she’d been doing really well since then. 

Maybe not.

Frank breathes, “Shit,” and scrubs a hand over his face, into his hair, resting his forehead on his palm. “ _Shit_. Are the boys okay?”

After a quiet cough, Linda sounds a bit choked up when she says, “They’re sleeping right now. I just got back from the station. They don’t even know yet.” 

“What the hell happened?”

“Well,” his mom says in the tone that says she’s trying her hardest to keep her shit together. “From what Daniela has told me, she apparently failed a random drug test at work and they searched her purse and her car and found a ton of narcotics prescribed to a few of her residents. So of course they called the police. She’s saying it has to be foul play and swears she didn’t take them. I don’t know what to think, Frankie.” She sighs again.

Frank doesn’t know what the fuck to say, so he sighs back and says, “Shit,” again because at least it feels right.

“Yeah,” his mom says, “Shit.” 

As much as he wants to believe she’s telling the truth, Dani had always been a bit of a wild-child, a manipulator, a charmer. There’s always been a bit of darkness to her that Frank had been blind to ever since he was a kid…so he just – he doesn’t know.

“But Frank,” she says, an edge of hesitation apparent.

“Yeah?”

“I called you because you’re their godfather.”

And just like that, Frank’s world drops straight out of the sky.

 

*

 

The walls of Dani’s apartment building are a faded yellow-gray that speaks of smoke abuse, cleaner off-white stripes along the lower parts of the hall, like little hands tracing it wall-to-wall. It’s speckled with terrible paintings of abstract boats and pastel flowers and rustic cabins. There are fake plants and fake wooden furniture in the downstairs lobby and Frank can’t help but think of a cheap motel.

Frank breathes, “Shit,” again like a newfound mantra and groggily makes his way to the stairwell. 

She’s only on the second floor, and Frank’s lungs are thankful for it. He stands outside of the room, texts his mom that he’s there, and waits for her to let him in – and _Jesus, her face_. She looks grayer and more lined than Frank can remember, and it’s only been a few weeks since he last saw her.

His mom pulls him into a hug and guides him through the dark to the kitchen where there’s a bit of light coming from the stove.

The apartment, or the kitchen at least, looks clean and cozy compared to the rough exterior of the rest of the complex. There’s a cookie jar, neatly stacked dishes in the drainer, pictures covering the fridge. Framed photographs litter the walls, Dani and the boys, one of her ex-husband, a couple of Frank and Linda, a few cousins and aunts and uncles and their grandma Sophia.

It looks like a _home_ and Frank’s having an even harder time believing that Dani could do something so stupid as stealing and taking narcotics.

Sighing, Frank sets his bag on the floor and pulls his mom in for a hug. She squeezes his hard around the shoulders, a thank you and apology all at once. “You’ve become such a good man,” she says when she finally pulls back. “I’m proud of you.”

Frank shakes his head, unable to smile or thank her. It’s nice to hear, but it’s not what he needs. He’s anxious about the kids, worried about Dani, and guilty for wondering how long this will last, how long it’ll be until he she’s back so that he can stick to worrying about his own life.

“So what are we gonna do?” Frank asks his mom.

Her expression goes pinched, drawn with worry. “We have to tell them,” she says resolutely, “That much I’m sure about. We don’t know how long this will last – we don’t know if she did it or not. There’s the whole arraignment period, the trial…all of that. There’s no telling.”

“…Okay, so I literally know nothing about criminal proceedings,” Frank admits.

“Well,” she says, “It depends on what they’re charging her, if that’s a misdemeanor or a felony. There’ll be an arraignment.” She covers her mouth, looks at Frank mournfully. “Oh, they’ll probably get a warrant to search the house…”

“The boys can’t be here for that,” Frank blurts. “Okay…okay.” He scratches at his head. “So we’ll have to tell them, what – Dani’s in jail and leave it at that? You know they’ll have questions.”

“And we’ll answer them the best we can.”

From there, they’re busy working out logistics and hypotheticals as best as they can until it’s so ridiculously late that Frank’s afraid he won’t be able to wake up before the kids in the morning. He hugs his mom one last time before he ushers her into the Dani’s bedroom to sleep.

As tired as he is, Frank lies awake on the living room couch, wondering what the hell Dani’s gotten herself into now. Knowing her, as well as her past, Frank can’t find it in himself to vehemently deny that she’s done anything wrong. He feels like he’s probably supposed to, simply because she’s blood and that’s what the fuck you’re supposed to do for your family, but he just doesn’t know. There have been a lot of low points to balance out the recent high points. 

A few hours later, Frank feels like he’s just barely closed his eyes when he hears, “Mama! _Mama!_ ” coming from the back hallway.

His stomach drops – anchor to seabed, plane from sky – harsh and resounding. He takes a deep breath in through his nose, lets it out through his mouth. Thankfully, he hears Dani’s door open, and creak shut, the familiar shuffle step of his mom and her little, “Good morning, pumpkin,” like nothing makes her happier in the world than being woken at the asscrack of dawn by her niece’s kid. 

Corey doesn’t yell, much to Frank’s surprise, and when his mom brings him into the living room perched on her hip, his eyes are sleepy and wide but bereft of tears. He’s wearing little pajamas with the Avengers on the front, Thor’s hammer and Hulk’s fist and Iron Man’s mask and Captain America’s shield patterned on the legs. If that doesn’t warrant a goofy smile then Frank doesn’t know what would, so he indulges in it.

“Hey, bug,” Frank greets him softly. His mom smiles at him and then looks down at Corey. Thumb in his mouth, he leans his head on her shoulder and stares at Frank in that intense way that only babies and toddlers can manage.

“You want some breakfast?” she asks, bouncing him a bit on her hip. 

Corey nods and, after a bit of coaxing, allows himself to be settled on the floor so that Linda’s hands are free. He stays close to her though, trailing closely with his fist clenched tightly around the cotton of her sleep pants. Frank follows, too, pulling faces at Corey between getting out pancake ingredients and pans. They make quick work of breakfast – Linda mixing batter for Frank to pour – and it doesn’t take long for the scents to work their magic and entice the other two boys from their rooms.

Frank notices first, says, “Mom,” quietly and tilts his head toward the open space between the living room and kitchen where Curtis stands, holding Carter by the hand.

Curtis immediately asks, “What are you guys doing here?” Though his voice is fairly even, his expression belies his suspicion. When Linda sighs and tells him to take a seat, it pinches even more but he obliges. “Is mom already at work?”

It isn’t technically a lie when Linda says, “She asked me to come get you boys today.” Corey’s watching his brothers, still clutching her legs as she butters pancakes and then sets them onto plates. “Do you want some pancakes?”

“I like pancakes,” Carter says. He pulls away from his brother and clambers up into a chair at the table, settled on his knees, looking at her and Frank expectantly with wide brown eyes.

Frank says, “Another couple of minutes, buddy,” and flips the next round. 

As much as he trusts his mother’s judgment, Frank finds himself struggling against the urge to blurt out the truth. The only problem is that he doesn’t _know_ the truth – not the whole truth, anyway – so he can’t be completely honest. There’s the fact that Daniela’s in jail; that can’t be denied. There’s the fact that she’s being charged with narcotic possession and theft and god only knows what else. But looking around, looking at how the boys look happy and clean and worried about their mom – Frank can’t see how she’d choose to fuck that up by stealing patients’ pills.

The boys seem content with the distraction of pancakes for the time being, and they all eat together in silence, Curtis answering Linda’s questions about how the seventh grade is treating him. Frank listens intently when Carter interrupts with anecdotes about first grade. His mom divides her attention between conversation with Curtis and cutting up another pancake for Corey.

Breakfast winds down after requests for more orange juice and Frank hears his mom take one of those weighted, anticipatory sighs. She looks over at Frank before she ushers him to take Carter and Corey into the living room. 

“Hey,” he says, coating his tone in excitement, “You guys wanna watch some cartoons?”

They exclaim their assent and Frank tells Carter to go ahead and get started without them while he washes Corey’s hands and face with a rag. Syrup tends to get everywhere though, so he scrubs at Corey’s highchair until his mom clears her throat. He mutters his apologies and takes a seat next to Curtis.

“She’s not at work, is she,” Curtis immediately says, eyes wide with concern. “What happened to her? She’s not dead, is she? Is she okay?” Panic threads his voice as it climbs in volume. 

He sounds so fucking young, more stressed out than any twelve year old should ever be. Frank’s breath catches in his throat.

“No, no, honey,” Linda says, “She’s alive. She’s okay.” Her brows crease with worry and she reaches across the table for his hand. He shies away, of course, because who the fuck are they to come in and pretend that everything’s okay when he can tell it isn’t? “She’s…Well. She’s down at the police station right now. They seem to think that she might’ve stolen some things.”

“Mama wouldn’t steal anything!” he shouts incredulously. His teary green eyes dart toward the living room where his brothers are on the couch, eyes glued to the bright shapes on the television, and then back at Linda. “She always told us never to – She _wouldn’t_.”

“I know she wouldn’t,” Frank says. It’s not entirely true, just a sudden and intense feeling right at the pit of his gut. Maybe it’s Curtis’s vehemence or his own implicit loyalty, but Frank says it and he fucking means it. “Daniela wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize you boys. You’re her whole world and she loves you so much.” 

At that Curtis dissolves into tears, slumping forward onto the table and burying his face in his hands. Sobs wrack from his body, anguished and heartbreaking. Frank puts an arm around his little cousin and pats as soothingly as he can. Of course, his cries draw Carter in and when Curtis wails, “Mama’s in jail!” at the top of his lungs, they suddenly have three boys to comfort instead of one. Carter clings to Frank’s side and Linda goes to pick up a very confused but sympathetic Corey.

It takes a long while before Frank and his mom can get Curtis or Carter to respond to them, telling them that they’re very sorry but they need to pack up their things to take to Frank’s house. After some convincing (“ _It’s not permanent, I promise. We can come back here for more things and we’ll go visit your mom as soon as it’s allowed._ ”) Curtis sniffs and nods. Carter’s defiant until Curtis tells him that they “ _have_ to; quit being a baby!” and begrudgingly goes to get his own stuff. Frank finds duffel bags in the hall closet – each with tags that delegate to which boy they belong – and helps Carter pack while his mom packs up all of Corey’s things.

Frank knocks on Curtis’s doorframe, says, “Hey, man. Can I come in?” and politely waits until he’s given consent. It’s in the form of a shrug and a disheartened, “I guess,” but Frank will take what he can get.

Curtis sits on the edge of his bed, staring forlornly at his open suitcase on the floor. On top of a pile of clothes is a framed picture of him and his brothers and his mom. Frank actually took the picture, now that he thinks about it – it’s from Easter a few years ago. The boys are all decked out in little suits with their hair combed to one side – even Carter and Corey’s frizzy curls. Curtis’s cheeks are flushed from playing, Carter’s looking up at his mom with a toothy grin, and Corey’s staring expressionlessly at Frank with his pacifier in his mouth. Dani’s smushing their faces against her own, eyes shining with pride and love, and wearing the biggest goofy smile. 

“This sucks,” Curtis says. His eyes go wide and he says, “No offense to you, I guess.” 

Frank shrugs in return and says, “No, it does suck.”

He’s quiet again. He sighs and stands, drops to his knees in front of his suitcase and zips it up. “How long is it supposed to take?”

“I have no clue,” Frank answers honestly. “Mom says there might be have to be a trial and there’s all kinds of others stuff that they have to do before that can even happen…” He gauges Curtis’s expression and goes on to say, “The police will probably be here soon though, so I’m gonna take you boys to my house. Mom’ll stay here until they’re gone.”

Curtis only sighs, but Frank can tell that he’s fighting the urge to ask if he can stay. Frank would want the same thing. Being uprooted fucking blows, no matter the age of person it happens to. He kicks his closet door shut, tosses his backpack on top of his suitcase – and then looks worriedly at Frank.

“I’m not gonna hafta change schools, am I?”

Huffing the tiniest laugh, Frank says, “No, dude. You can stay at McKinley. Your, uh, Aunt Linda might have to take you though, since I have to be at work at seven. Carter’s going to have to come to Cedar Creek with me.”

His relief looks palpable, although guilt seems to follow it if the way he bites his lip is any indication. 

“You ready to go? We should probably leave pretty soon.”

Nodding, Curtis tugs his backpack onto his shoulders and slips his Nikes onto his feet. His suitcase is one of those obnoxious wheeled things, so he tugs it behind him as he follows Frank into the living area. Linda has already taken Corey’s things down to Frank’s car.

They’d planned it out – Linda being the bearer of bad news – because Frank’s the one who’s taking them home. His mom had told him that it’d be much easier and less tense if she was the one to actually say it and Frank had believed her. Neither Curtis nor Carter hugs her back whenever she says goodbye and Frank mouths, “Sorry,” to her. She waves him off like it’s no big deal.

 

*

 

Curtis is silent the whole half-hour drive to Frank’s place and Frank doesn’t bother encouraging him to talk. The other two chatter enough to make up for it, so he’s content to listen to that and reflect.

Both Carter and Curtis help bring in bags, and Corey carries small things when Frank asks him to. He sets them up in the living room with the Kinect on his Xbox while he works on cleaning up his guest bedrooms. One is basically all set – because he’s actually had a couple of guests before, contrary to popular belief ( _Mom_ ) – but the other is littered with sheet music and guitars and one of Frank’s nicer cameras. He takes all of his valuables into his own room, sets them on his bed to deal with later, vacuuming and dusting and putting fresh sheets on the bed. 

Noon rolls around and Frank’s just putting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the table when his mom calls.

Turns out that when the cops showed up with their warrant, one of them was the son of an old friend of hers and she found out a little bit more about the case. It looks they combed the place top to bottom and didn’t find a damn thing, so that’ll definitely work in Dani’s favor. There will more than likely be a trial. _This is good_ , Frank thinks, because she can probably win sympathy from the jury.

 

*

 

The first two days are strained more than anything with Curtis being awkwardly polite and Carter wetting the bed and Corey crying for his mom at all hours of the day. It’s tough and Frank’s not sleeping and his mom can only help so much.

Monday morning, Frank wakes up at five to pack lunches and do some laundry. By six, he’s waking Carter to get ready for school – clothes already laid out, toothbrush ready at the sink, shoes and backpack by the door – and half an hour later, he’s letting his mom into the house so that he can go.

Bob, when Frank introduces Carter, is very polite and understanding and Frank can totally see how he’s worked his way up to being the principal of Cedar Creek Elementary. He gets Carter to open up almost immediately and personally walks him down to his new classroom so he can meet his teacher, Ms. Ballato. (Lindsey’s an awesome lady, strict when needed and creative where it counts, the perfect combination for a first grade teacher. She’ll be good for Carter, even if she isn’t particularly fond of Frank.)

When they make it back up front, Bob says, “You look like crap warmed over, Iero,” and in lieu of a response Frank grunts something neutral and shrugs. “Tell me what’s going on.”

As Frank tells the story, Bob’s frown grows deeper, and by the time he’s gotten to the present, Bob looks like he might actually feel a little bit sorry for Frank. He supposes it warrants that, but it’s family shit so Frank will handle it. He doesn’t really have any other choice. So, Frank does the transferal paperwork and signs off as Carter’s guardian, logs it in, and files it away.

The day passes fairly quickly after that.

Frank does his usual three PM bus announcements and within a few minutes, Carter is up in the front office, waiting for Frank to finish up. He’s quiet, a little sullen, as he sits across from the front desk. He’s resting his chin in one hand and watching the other students run toward the buses, shouting and laughing with their friends. And _Jesus_ does that make Frank feel shitty – like, he felt shitty before, but now he feels extra super fucking shitty because he uprooted Carter and submersed the kid in a completely new environment with completely new people without truly considering the fact that he was, in actuality, taking him away from everything he knows. What had he said? _Oh, he’s six; he’ll make friends easily._

“Hey, buddy,” Frank says after he’s made the last announcement. “Ready to go?”

Carter nods and holds Frank’s hand when he offers it. Frank says his goodbyes to Bryar and leads the way to his car. He puts his bag in the passenger seat, reminds Carter to buckle up, and then, after enduring a whole two minutes of silence, goes, “How about some ice cream?” And well, Frank’s bowels are going to regret it but he can’t take all the moping.

At the ice cream suggestion, Carter perks up significantly. They’ve got two hours before Linda gets back to Frank’s with Curtis and Corey, so Frank drives to the little retro parlor across town just to see the way Carter’s eyes light up at the checkered tiles and the jukebox and the shiny records on the wall. He keeps hold of Frank’s hand as they approach the counter, gaping in awe at everything around them. They get a banana split and take it to a booth, sharing with two spoons.

“So,” Frank starts, trying to quell his smile at the smear of chocolate syrup on Carter’s cheek, “Was today too bad?”

“No,” Carter sighs. He takes another spoonful of the vanilla covered in strawberry syrup, still avoiding the banana like the plague. “It was good. Ms. B’lato is nice. She didn’t yell when I didn’t know the rules and told the other kids to be nice.”

Frank cuts the banana into manageable chunks with his spoon and nabs a bit of the strawberry syrup before Carter eats it all. “That’s good,” he muses, “What did you learn?”

“We learned squares and rectangles and to make some words have…capit – capitals. Names _always_ have big letters.” He scoops up some of the melted ice cream and slurps it loudly from his spoon. “And then she read us some po-ums and we added and minused with our number grids.” The jukebox whirrs and clatters as it changes records and Carters eyes go wide as he smiles big and bright, thrumming with excitement as he says, “Our class had music today too and Mister Stump played some rock ’n’ roll like this!” He bounces a bit in his seat and taps his spoon against the table to the beat, ice cream residue smearing the surface and speckling it over near Frank.

It’s nice to see Carter smile – especially since he’s missing one of his front teeth – and Frank hopes more than anything that the good mood carries on into the evening. After cleaning up their mess (and Carter) with a copious amount of napkins, Frank orders a few tubs of ice cream to go for the other boys and loads everything into the car. The ride home is filled with chatter until about ten minutes away when Carter falls asleep. _Sugar crash._

The dogs yowl when they get home, immediately sniffling at the sleepy six-year-old until he bends to pet them. Frank takes his backpack for him and sets it on the back of his designated chair at the kitchen table. 

“Can I feed the puppies?” Carter asks. Mama licks at Carter’s face and Sweet Pea is content to lie on her back, getting her belly scratched. “I promise I won’ give ‘em too much.”

“Sure, kiddo,” Frank responds. He shows Carter where to get it from the pantry, instructs him to only use one scoop for each of them, and tells him to take them in the backyard to potty afterward. Carter does really well with the dogs and beams proudly when Frank tells him as much.

Not too long after, his mom comes home with the other two boys, Curtis trailing sullenly with a heavy backpack and Corey slumped against her shoulder, fast asleep. He motions her toward the couch, because he’ll have to wake him up for dinner in just a little while and accepts a kiss on the cheek in greeting once she makes her way back to the kitchen. Curtis sits at the table with his pre-algebra textbook and mostly sticks to frowning a lot and making a lot of frustrated noises before understanding relaxes his face and he scribbles in his work. He asks Frank to check his work when he’s finished about an hour later and Frank doesn’t find any mistakes.

“Sweet, dude,” Frank says, offering a high five. Curtis looks all abashed but slaps Frank’s hand and then asks to play the PS3. Carter appears from outside to join in, dogs yipping at all of the excitement.

All of the commotion wakes Corey, and he stumbles his way into the kitchen, fingers in mouth, looking wide-eyed up at Frank. He’s probably taking this the worst because all he knows is that nobody will let him see his mom. It’s basically the worst thing Frank can think of doing to a child and there’s absolutely nothing he can do, at least not yet, to fix it. Frank holds his arms out and Corey walks toward him, extending his own arms and allowing Frank to pick him up, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

 _Small victories_ , Frank thinks. “Hey, bug,” he says, patting Corey’s back. Corey rests his head on Frank’s shoulder. “You hungry?”

He replies with a mournful, “No.”

“Alright.” And well, that puts a little bit of a damper on Frank’s plans. He already has salted water boiling on the burner and a box of penne noodles next to the stove. “Do you want to play with the puppies while your brothers play video games?”

“No.”

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Frank guesses he could set the little guy up in his room so long as he keeps the door open and he has Curtis check on him every so often. The only truly valuable thing in there would be his guitar. “I have _Thor_ on Blu-ray; he’s your favorite, right?”

“I don’t _wanna_ watch a movie.”

Patience waning, Frank asks, “Well, what _do_ you want?”

“I wanna go home,” Corey warbles, and in the very next second he’s sucking in a shaky breath and sobbing out, “I want my mama!”

It takes everything in Frank’s entire being not to visibly show how much that breaks his heart, so he just repeats, “Shh-shh, I know,” and rubs at Corey’s back until his cries quiet. The water’s just about boiling over before Frank is able to return to it, dumping in the pasta as soon as he gets a free hand. Clanging swords sound from the other room – and it sounds like Curtis has found _Assassin’s Creed_ – and Carter shouts excitedly. Corey clutches at Frank’s shirt and whimpers every now and again.

After dinner, Frank doles out ice cream to the boys (even Carter, because there’s no such thing as too much ice cream for a weary soul) and tells stories from his childhood to keep them entertained. They barely warrant chuckles, let alone a smile or two, and so Frank, grasping desperately for ideas, suggests reading them a story.

To Curtis’s claims that he’s too old for bedtime stories, Frank says, “Whatever, man. You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to, but I’m sure you’ve never actually _read_ the _Harry Potter_ books.” At that Curtis’s expression shifts and Frank thinks, _Got him_. Following baths and teeth-brushing, Frank tucks Corey between Carter and Curtis and lifts the dogs onto the bed. Corey curls a hand around Mama’s head and Sweet Pea tucks herself between him and Carter. Feet kicked up onto the mattress, Frank pulls the desk chair closer and starts reading _The Sorcerer’s Stone_ using his best narrator’s voice. They’re a little bored up until the point Dumbledore confronts Professor McGonagall and Frank, ever the enthusiast, uses accents and differing tones for both of them. That, at least, has Carter laughing. Frank even notices Curtis smothering a smile.

It doesn’t take much longer for Corey to nod off, thumb in his mouth, and Carter’s blinking sleepily and protesting vehemently when Frank dog-ears it after finishing the first chapter. He says, “If you boys are good, I can read the Chapter Two tomorrow.” 

That gets Carter quiet and he acquiesces with a reluctant, “Oh, alright.”

Planting a goodnight kiss on Carter’s forehead, Frank ushers Curtis into the other bedroom with a one-armed hug. 

“That wasn’t too lame, now was it?” he asks, only half-casual. Frank really is curious, because he doesn’t want to start a book that Curtis won’t care about either. He figures that it’ll at least grab Carter’s attention and Corey might even find some parts, or Frank’s voices at the very least, interesting. 

“I guess,” Curtis says, shrugging. Frank catches the hint of a smile back on the corner of Curtis’s mouth. He can’t help but ruffle his little cousin’s hair before he disappears into the room.

It’s only a little after ten o’clock and Frank’s skin is still thrumming with remnants of anxiety, so he grabs a beer from the fridge and settles on the couch, intent on watching some Sports Center to see how the first Devils’ pre-season game went. One beer turns into three and Frank’s buzzed, shuffling off to bed with stats shuffling through his brain Rolodex style. It makes him a little dizzy, actually, so he downs some acetaminophen and falls into bed.

 

*

 

Thursday morning, Linda has a meeting first thing in downtown Newark, so Frank is left to fend for the boys all by himself. He texts Bob and gets permission to come in a little late so that he can get Corey and Curtis dropped off before he comes in, and basically runs around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to figure out how to get them all out the door within a reasonable time-frame.

He’s set out most everything the night before, lunches and clothes and shoes and backpacks, but Carter accidentally drops his toothbrush in the toilet and Curtis won’t get out of bed and Corey’s hair is an absolute mess and Frank has _no idea_ how to fix it. It’s a madhouse, basically.

“Curtis, butt out of bed now!” he shouts, still trying to slick Corey’s curls down with water. Within two minutes they’re back to fuzzy and wild and Frank is just about at his wit’s end trying to figure out how his mom got them to look shiny and like they actually had shape. “Curtis, I mean it!”

Carter comes in, asking, “Can I just skip brushing my teeth?” after tugging on Frank’s belt loop. His jeans slide down his hips a bit – and _Jesus_ , he’s still only halfway ready. 

“No, sir, you cannot. Here,” he says, reaching for Carter’s hand. He uncurls his little fist and grabs the little Kid’s Crest tube, squirting out the blue goop onto the tip of Carter’s finger. “Finger-brush. I used to have to do that sometimes when I was a kid.”

When he turns back, Carter has Frank’s electric razor and is just about to touch it before Frank snatches it away with an, “Ah, _no!_ ” 

In the end, Carter finger-brushes for all of thirty seconds and Curtis eventually gets up under threat of no video games this weekend and Frank gives in and calls Travie, one of the third grade teachers, exclaiming, “Dude, help me, please. I don’t know how to do mixed-guy hair!” Travie patiently tells him to leave in a bit of conditioner and that helps _tremendously_ so Frank says, “Thank you so f – effing much. I will totally S your D, man.” 

Travie laughs.

“Alright, kids!” Frank yells after hoisting Corey down from the sink. “It’s go time!”

They’re mostly a rag-tag group when all is said and done, but Frank gets them out of the door with zero casualties. It’s totally a win.

 

*

 

“Cedar Creek Elementary School, this is Frank. How might I be of assistance?” Wendesdays are always slow as summer clouds, so Frank finds a bit of entertainment in answering the phones as primly as possible. It’s better than fucking up, plus he actually sounds like a professional, so at the very least Bob is happy.

There’s a snort from the other line. “We’ll I’ll be damned. Somebody actually learned where he works.”

“Mr. Way,” Frank says, his flat tone belying his surprise. “It’s a pleasure to speak to you as always. How can I help you?”

“Oh, _and_ you recognize my dulcet tones,” he says, laughing. “I’m sorry, this is just too fun. I’m actually on my way to pick up Turner, so if you can have her ready in the front office by noon, that would be great.”

“Duly noted and will do,” Frank replies. It’s actually the most amusing phone call he’s had all day so he can’t even get pissy at Mr. Way’s teasing. “Will that be all?”

“Yes, Frank. Thank you. And A-plus on the secretary-ing today.” Mr. Way ends the call with a clatter and a curse that Frank probably isn’t supposed to hear. 

It makes him giggle a bit as he cradles his handset and begins typing up the note. When the designated fifth grade Office Helper returns with the note and news of Ms. Ballato’s class being absent from the classroom, Frank sends the kid back to Ms. Williams’s class and takes matters into his own hands. Bob waves him off, so Frank treks all the way down to the west hall to take the north-facing door that leads to the playground just past the cafeteria. He spots Lindsey almost immediately, talking to Ms. Addams (formerly Fodera if Frank remembers correctly) as the children scream and laugh and play and get so smelly that Frank’s a little bit grateful that he isn’t actually a teacher. Frank waves when they notice him approaching.

Out of nowhere, little arms are wrapped around his hips – “ _Oof!_ ” – and he looks down to see Carter. “Hey, little guy,” Frank says, smiling and rubbing at his shoulder. He can feel Lindsey and Jessicka staring at him, but whatever, if his little cousin wants a hug then Frank’s going to hug him, dammit.

“Frankie, are you coming to play with us?” Carter asks, looking up at Frank with his big brown eyes and a pouted, nearly quivering, lower lip.

“That doesn’t work on me, kiddo,” he replies smoothly, swallowing down the sympathy. Two other kids, whose names Frank can’t remember, are scuffing their shoes a few feet away and so he says, “I think your friends are waiting for you.”

Carter’s eyes brighten and he says, “Yeah, we’re playing ‘injas and trying to sneak up and scare the girls – it’s super fun. You should _plaaaaay._ ” He tugs on Frank’s arm, trying to pull him over to their supposed basecamp.

“That does sound super fun,” Frank admits, frowning a little bit, “but I’ve got some work to do. Maybe we can play later with your brothers.”

With a huffed, “Fine,” Carter allows himself to be whisked away by his friends and leaves Frank alone with the other adults.

He can’t quite decipher their expressions so he shoves his hands in his pockets and awkwardly says, “Uhh, hi.”

Jessicka is smiling alarmingly wide and even Lindsey looks almost fond. (Frank is a little scared, actually.) They both say, “Oh my _god,_ ” and then look at each other. Lindsey whispers something to Jessicka and she squeals, high and sharp and looks at Frank a little bit like she wants to eat him alive.

“Alright,” Frank says, ignoring whatever the hell is going on. “So, I actually came out here for a purpose other than seeing the little dude. Turner’s dad called and he’s coming to pick her up in about twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Lindsey says, smiling brightly. It’s the first time he can remember her showing him anything other than professional indifference and he can’t help but feel like a bloodied fish in a shark tank. “I didn’t know that – I mean, I _knew_ , because Bob said something and Carter’s mentioned a Frank, but it never really clicked before and just. Oh, god, you are so precious with him.” Jessicka is nodding along looking every bit as sharkish as Lindsey.

Frank inches away.

After a few more uncomfortable seconds, Lindsey shouts for Turner and – of course, she’s one of the ones Carter is harassing with his friends, only she doesn’t look as annoyed as the other three girls she’s sitting with. Her attention snaps toward Lindsey though, and she scrambles up from the dirt, waving at her friends before she brushes off the seat of her pants. 

She walks with Frank, talking the whole way, and it’s mostly about how she wasn’t scared of Tison ‘cause he’s her friend and she thinks the-new-kid-Carter is really funny and nice mostly and how she really really really likes his pretty brown skin. (Frank barely holds back giggles.) At that she takes on the dreamiest smile he’s ever seen on a child and Frank laughs, loud and unadulterated, and says, “Sounds like somebody has a crush.”

Turner doesn’t deign to respond and Frank admires that a little bit. It just rolls right off and she still has that little self-satisfied smile. She’s so much more mature than Carter – hell, she’s more mature than _Curtis_. If Frank had teased him about having a crush, he’s pretty sure that Curtis would run to his room and slam the door instead of being all unfazed.

By the time they’ve gathered her backpack and she’s stopped for a potty break and they’ve gotten back up to the office, there’s still about ten minutes before her father’s due. So Frank lets her hang out with him behind the front desk, sitting in the chair that the part time secretary, Alex, occupies on occasion. (Actually, Frank’s pretty sure the dude hasn’t renewed his position, which is a shame because he’d been surprisingly entertaining over the summer when he was training Frank.)

Turner is still spinning around in the chair, laughing high and loud, when her father approaches the front doors. 

And _wow_. Just. _Wow_. He’s not all that tall, but he has a very nice frame – beneath fairly plain clothes are broad shoulders and a trim waist. His face, the parts not hidden beneath the massive sunglasses, is sharp and soft at the same time, a nice mix of feminine and masculine into near androgyny. His hair is dark, a strange shade of brown like it’d been dyed too many times and this is the first time he’s growing in his natural color. Mr. Way clears his throat and Frank realizes he’s been staring this whole time and Turner is still spinning.

Frank lets her keep spinning, waiting for the man to say, “Hi, I’m here to pick up Turner,” before she stops. She practically falls out of the chair, flailing in her excitement as she yells, “Daddy!” and runs around the corner of the desk and into his arms.

They share greetings, and as always Frank feels like he’s intruding on something too sacred for his own eyes, and then Mr. Way turns to address him. “You must be Frank,” he says with a smirk, _still_ wearing his sunglasses. 

_Indoors_ like a douchebag, not that Frank had expected anything other than. 

He outstretches his hand and with an abashed, “Uh, yeah…Guilty,” Frank takes it, firmly shakes it, and very consciously reminds himself not to let it linger. Mr. Way’s other hand is cradling Turner against his hip and Frank notes the absence of a ring. There’s not even so much as a tan-line to signify a recent divorce and Frank won’t lie, his interest is piqued.

“Well,” Mr. Way says, smirk widening, “it’s nice to finally put a face to a voice.” 

Frank agrees. Wholeheartedly. Or, well, he would, if he could actually see the dude’s eyes.

“Alright, munchkin. Are you ready to go see Gramma and Uncle Mikey?” Turner’s enthusiasm bleeds over onto Mr. Way’s face, his smirk turning into an excited smile much like his daughter’s. He scribbles his signature on the sign-out sheet and says, “It was nice to meet you, Frank.”

Remembering his surroundings, Frank clears his throat and says, “You, too, Mr. Way.” For the briefest second, Frank thinks he sees something in the man’s eyes before the smile melts back into a smirk and he’s out the door, Turner in tow.

Frank lets out a deep breath.

Not even a minute later, Bob appears and looks at Frank like he knows everything and does not approve in any way whatsoever (which is pretty par for the course as far as Bob goes, concerning just about anything that Frank does). With an innocent, “What did I do?” Frank shrugs and hides his smile.

“You barely said two words to the guy,” Bob explains.

Well, yeah, okay. That’s not exactly a Frank-norm, so it could definitely be misconstrued as something his thoughts being somewhere not entirely workplace appropriate.

Bob rolls his eyes and, ever fond of the imperative mood over the indicative, instructs Frank to draft a memo to remind teachers about the upcoming Open House with a curt, “Draft an Open House memo.” After that’s finished, proof-read, and sent, Bob says, “Now, make some flyers for the kids’ Thursday folders. They’ll need to go out tomorrow.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n.” Frank proffers an unappreciated salute and gets to work.

 

*

 

“Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!”

“No, that’s for _babies_ – let’s get the kind that has the bacon and pepperoni and sausage and mushrooms and –”

“ _Ew!_ ” 

The two oldest are arguing loudly in the living room, the dogs are barking, and somehow through it all Corey is napping in the middle of the hallway. Frank’s in the kitchen, phone cradled to his ear as he listens to his mom give the briefest of status updates. “It looks like it’ll be another two weeks before they call her in for the arraignment. One of her coworkers has come forward with more evidence though. It’s all a big hairy mess if you ask me.” 

“So do you think that’ll have an effect on Dani?”

“If what I’ve heard is true, yeah.” Linda laughs suddenly, says, “Will you tell the boys I say hi?”

Smiling, Frank says, “Sure, Mom. I’d better go before they break the coffee table. I’m pretty sure they’ve turned the living room into a wrestling ring.”

When he gets back into the living room, Carter is slung around Curtis’s back screaming, “Cheese!” into his ear and Curtis is an alarming shade of red in the face.

“Carter!” Frank barks, “Get off your brother, now.” Carter does, wide-eyed, and Curtis wrenches in a big breath and struggles out a raspy, “Bacon,” and how ridiculous is Frank’s life right now.

“Jesus Christ, you two,” he says, palm on his forehead, “we can get more than one pizza.”

They both give celebratory exclamations and Frank sighs, turning back into the kitchen to order from his favorite joint. When he returns, he has Curtis help him move the coffee table to the corner of the living room and then Carter helps him put down a big sheet for their movie night picnic. Netflix offers an array of children’s movies from Frank’s childhood and after a little convincing they all agree on _Back to the Future_. 

Frank pops popcorn, the pizza comes, and later they have ice cream. Each and every one of them is groaning on the floor, alternately clutching their stomachs and giggling. Corey still has a handful of popcorn clutched in his little fist. Even the dogs look a little sick.

“So, boys,” Frank says, rolling onto his side to let up on some of the pressure in his gut. And maybe it’s because of that conversation with Turner earlier, the way her dad just breezed in and charmed the pants off of Frank, rendering him speechless and enamored in less than two minutes flat. “As movie nights and boys’ nights alike tend to go, I require some pertinent information…” Carter blinks and looks at Curtis and Curtis shrugs. Frank tries not to laugh. “That means that I need to know about any and all crushes.”

Carter immediately starts giggling and hides his face in his hands, shouting, “Ew, gross!” while Curtis groans and turns eight hundred shades of pink in the face. 

“Oh, ho ho, Curtis,” Frank says, “Does a certain young friend have your attention?”

“ _Fraaaaaaank._ ”

And oh god, this is exactly why Frank had always wanted siblings. He’d never gotten the chance to grill about crushes or subsequently embarrass the crap out of them in front of said crush. It’s a lifelong goal that he’s finally going to get to check off.

“Oh, no, sir. You are not getting out of it. You either, Carter. I want full disclosure.” Frank pokes Curtis in the belly and he groans again. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, _tell me._ ”

“Fine,” Curtis huffs. He delves, reluctantly, into the epic tale of his love for a young girl by the name of Emily, fair-haired and sweeter than candy, and gets all annoyed when Frank asks question after question after question. Really, he can’t help it because this is the most amusing shit he’s ever experienced. He sighs and answers, “Well, _no_ ,” when Frank asks if he’s ever spoken to her and so Frank gives the pep talk of all pep talks and has him resolved to make a move come Monday morning.

Carter on the other hand, steadfastly frowning in disgust as Frank names off each and every one of his classmates – until he gets to little Miss Turner Way. _Then_ the kid gets a dopey smile on his face, looking moony as ever when he lies, “No way.” 

Curtis immediately starts hounding his brother, asking all about her and doing his very best to tease – and it’s funny, it’s fucking _hilarious_ , because Carter just keeps making the dreamy-eyes and brushes it right off like it’s not a big deal. Just like the little girl he has his eye on.

 

*

 

At some point in the middle of the night, Frank wakes with this massive impending sense of wrongness. He doesn’t panic, though, he knows not to panic. Slowly cracking open his eyes, Frank scans his room until –

He hears a quiet, “’Ankie?” followed by the tiniest sob. Sitting up, Frank sees Corey standing at the base of his bed, fingers curled around the post and his other hand tightly clutching his little stuffed rabbit. The light coming in from the hall through the cracked door reflects off the shine in his eyes.

“Corey? Are you okay, bug?” His voice sounds awful, fraught with worry, and from what Frank can tell in the darkness, Corey looks to be trembling. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Corey nods and sidles around to the side of Frank’s bed, stretching both arms out so that Frank can hoist him up onto the bed. It takes a little bit of time, but after he’s stuttered and mumbled and repeated himself more times than Frank can count, Frank finally makes out that his dream was about bad guys taking his mom and his brothers and leaving Corey all by himself. Initially, Frank feels guilty because he can’t understand Corey as easily as his brothers – he’s not used to it, the substitutions for certain consonants and the whiny, sad tone that distorts some of his vowels – and it shouldn’t be this hard. He knows he hasn’t been exposed to it for long so he shouldn’t. But he can’t help it. 

It eats at him as Frank holds Corey close, letting him snuggle into his chest with his rabbit a soft weight on Frank’s hip. He holds him and hushes him and tells him it’ll all be okay until he finally drifts off.

 

*

 

There isn’t enough coffee in the world to get Frank through Monday on a regular basis, let alone the fact that today they have to be there an hour early for a staff meeting. Frank sits between Patrick and Lindsey – who has been decidedly chummier recently – and listens to Bob drone on about district requirements and funding and extracurricular participation. (Frank typed up the notes so he doesn’t feel all that shitty about tuning him out during the actual meeting.) 

At some point, though, it’s silent and Lindsey subtly kicks Frank in the ankle until he looks up and sees every face in the room trained on him. Even Bob. _Shit._

“Uh…I’m sorry –”

“Thank you for volunteering, Frank,” Bob says coolly, restacking his notes. “In that case, meeting adjourned. There’s coffee and donuts. Enjoy yourselves.”

Over the clamor of teachers gathering their shit and murmuring to one another about coffee selections, he whispers to Lindsey, “What the fuck did he just sign me up for?”

She smirks, red lips standing out, as she answers, “If you’d been paying attention, you might’ve known about the surprise guest artist we’ll be having at the end of the month. You volunteered to be his or her helper for the day.”

“Oh,” Frank says, scratching at a spot on his cardigan. _Is that juice? Toothpaste?_ “Well. I’m okay with being a sidekick. That’s definitely not as bad as I was thinking.” Lindsey quirks a brow and Frank waves her off, frowning exaggeratedly. “Trust me; you don’t wanna know.”

 

*

 

Frank literally forgets about the whole teacher meet-and-greet thing until about ten ‘til eight, when they’re supposed to be there, and Carter says, “Is it time to go meet Miss B’lato now?”

For a second, Frank just blinks at Carter – and then he’s checking his phone, the date, the time, wondering why the fuck his calendar alert hadn’t gone off, why he forgot when he’s the one who _made the flyers_. Then he’s frantically texting his mom to come over to watch the other two, shouting for Curtis to take care of Corey until she gets back there, and unceremoniously shoving Carter into the car. After making sure the kid is buckled up in the center seat of the back row, Frank jets to Cedar Creek, narrowly avoiding getting pulled over by slamming the fuck on his breaks when he notices a cop sitting in a speed trap.

They rush inside, Frank carrying Carter piggyback, and he’s squealing with laughter as he bounces with each jarring step. “Slow down!” Carter yell-laughs, “We’re gonna die!”

“Not on my watch,” Frank returns, hitching Carter up more securely, keeping a steady hold beneath his knees.

The first grade classrooms are almost all the way at the west end of the long hall, right before the gym, music room, pre-k, and kindergarten rooms. Frank checks the time and they’re only like seven minutes late, that’s not too bad but –

“Whoa, there.” Hands come out to steady Frank as Carter’s weight shifts and nearly tips them over when Frank nearly runs smack into someone’s back. 

And _of course_ that someone is Mr. Way. Turner peeks around his leg.

Only, Frank is stuck on the fact that Mr. Way still has his hands curled around Frank’s arms, smirking crookedly, and it’s the first time Frank has seen his eyes. Honestly, Frank can say that he’s never seen eyes so weirdly colored or eyelashes so long. They’re wide and either mossy brown or golden green, Frank can’t tell which color is more dominant, and very, _very_ intensely staring into Frank’s.

It takes a second for all of the synapses to fire off and say, “Hey, Frank! You’re staring! He’s talking!” It also helps that Carter’s tugging on Frank’s ear, saying, “Let me _down!_ ” 

“Oh, um, I’m so sorry,” he says, awkwardly lowering Carter to the floor, “Got a little excited. Um.”

“No, no,” Mr. Way says, “Don’t worry about it. We actually took a little longer than allotted, but Turner had some neat drawings to show me. Isn’t that right?” He looks down at Turner, still bashfully looking around his thigh. (Which, again, _wow_. This dude is kind of very attractive what with his super-tight jeans tucked into these weirdo biker boots and just all kinds of Frank’s type. It’s not even _fair_.) 

She nods and smiles shyly. “Hi, Mr. Frankie. Hi, Carter.”

“Hi, Turner!” Carter exclaims, waving excitedly even though he’s like two feet away. 

Frank’s close to pissing himself, trying so hard not to laugh, because his cousin has zero game and it’s fucking adorable. When he looks up, Mr. Way’s making the same approximate face, disguising his laugh with a cough. 

“Well,” he says, addressing Frank again, “Don’t wanna hold you guys up any longer than we already have. Take care.” Mr. Way takes Turner’s hand, leading them down the long stretch of hall.

The sudden sound of Lindsey clearing her throat gains Frank’s attention, and he says, “Oh, hey, didn’t see you there.” He laughs nervously.

She quirks an eyebrow – which is becoming more and more frequent, he has noticed – and evenly says, “I could tell.” Lindsey makes a “we’ll talk later” face and ushers Carter and him inside the classroom. It’s bright and cheery with large, construction paper cut-out numbers and letters covering one wall, student art on the opposite, one with windows, and the last with the chalkboard. The kids actually have desks instead of tables and they are so tiny that Frank can’t help but giggle as he takes a seat beside Carter.

“So, is Carter terrorizing the neighborhood or being the perfect little angel that he is?”

Laughing, Lindsey says, “Oh, my gosh.” The way her eyes crinkle around the edges is adorable, especially with the way she scrunches her nose. If Frank weren’t about eight thousand percent gay he’d totally have made a move by now. She shakes her head. “He’s definitely not the worst terror of the class, I’ll tell you that.”

Carter says, “Hey! I’m _nice_. I always let my friends go first during the ‘tivites and I wait my turn and Ms. B’lato said I was a good helper –” He looks a little distraught, frowning as he makes wide, worried eyes up at Lindsey. “I am a good helper, right?”

“Yes, you are, Carter,” she assures him. To Frank, she says, “He seems to be adjusting to the transfer really well. He has great behavior, good grades – he’s really excelling at reading and math.” Clearing her throat again, she says, “I’ve actually recommended him for the gifted and talented program.”

“Oh,” Frank says, scratching at the back of his head, “That’s great, wow. Awesome job, kiddo.” Carter beams up at him. “So he’s in the program now, or…? What does it entail?”

“Well,” Lindsey begins, “Carter would go with the other selected students to Ms. Williams’ classroom to work on additional –”

“No, no,” Frank interrupts, waving a hand, “I know that. I mean, I work in the front office for f – _heck’s_ sake. I just mean…well, we’re not entirely sure if he’ll stay here all year or, honestly the rest of the semester.” Jesus, Frank feels like shit for talking about the kid when he’s right fucking there. He wants to tell him to go hang out in the hallway or draw a picture or something – anything to keep him from making that sad little expression that’s even more dejected than puppy eyes.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Just – the, uh, situation is a little sensitive at the moment. We’re not sure how permanent things will be. If he’s in G/T here, will that transfer to his old school if he ends up going back?”

Furrowing her brows, Lindsey goes, “I don’t see how that would be a problem.” She keeps making that same suspicious face like she’s going to grill him the next time she sees him and well. Frank’s kind of not up for it. Not now, anyway.

“Cool. Well,” he says, clasping his fingers together on top of the little desk. He knocks his shoulder into Carter’s, doing it again and again until he starts to smile. “What else do you have for me?”

Lindsey shakes her head, smiling as she looks between him and Carter. “I think that’s enough torture for one night. Besides it’s not like I don’t see you all the time.” She approaches, reaching a hand out for Frank to shake. So he stands, shakes it – and her other hand comes down on top of it, squeezing lightly. “Thanks for coming in. I’ll see you both on Monday!”

After a quick hug from Carter, Lindsey waves them off and then they’re walking down the hall, hands in their pockets like parallel versions of each other. Carter is quiet, sullen, during the car ride home and quiet when they’re walking in the front door, dragging his feet and ignoring the dogs, his brothers, and Aunt Linda as he shuffles toward the hall.

“Is he okay?” Linda asks Frank, swiping at the mess of – spaghettios? What the hell is that? – from the floor beside Corey’s chair. A quick glance tells him that Corey’s with the dogs in the living room and he can hear the shower running down the hall.

He shrugs. “I think he’ll be alright.”

“Okay,” his mom says. She wrings the towel out in the sink, rinses it down with the disposal going. “Are _you_ alright?”

“Yeah,” he replies, voice tight. Though he knows it’ll earn a disapproving glare from his mother, Frank grabs a beer out of the fridge and cracks it open, offering one to her out of courtesy. He ignores the leveled stare and says, “Okay, so that went great. Apparently he’s a genius, which I’m sure Dani already knew, but I just. I don’t know, he kind of shut down when Lindsey brought up the whole gifted and talented thing and when I asked if it’d transfer, he wouldn’t even look up at me.” His mom looks like she’s going to say something, but Frank barrels on, “It’s like. I want this to be over because it sucks for the kids and it _really_ sucks for Dani. But, like – fuck, I don’t even know.”

“You love them, you’re getting to spend time with them for the first time in a few years, and you want it to be a permanent thing,” she says, nodding like it’s fucking logical or something. “But you don’t want to sound like an asshole by saying it out loud. I get it.”

Lowering his eyes, Frank sips at his beer and stares at middle distance, wondering how she’s able to so clearly articulate what he’s thinking. 

Linda comes around the table, ruffles his hair and bends to kiss his temple in a way that will never fail to make him feel five years old. “You’re not an asshole,” she assures him. “Now, Curtis gave me a letter to give his mom the next time I see her. Do you want me write one too or is there anything you want me to tell her?”

Shaking his head and feeling a little ashamed, Frank answers, “Just tell her I love her and I miss her and I’m doing my best not to fuck up her kids, I guess.”

Laughing, Linda ruffles his hair one more time before she gathers up her purse and says goodbye.

Corey’s mumbling to himself, making his toys walk across and jump off of various pieces of furniture in the living room (dogs notwithstanding) so Frank goes to check on Carter. He’s slumped in the middle of the bed, ass in the air and mouth slack with sleep. It’s probably (definitely) one of the most precious things Frank has ever seen, so he backs out and resolves to try to talk to the kid first thing in the morning. He’ll wake up for _Batman_ and _Teen Titans_ , hell or high water.

After Curtis gets out of the shower, Frank allows him to commandeer the television while he gets Corey situated in the bathtub (including rubber duckies, action figures, and lots of bubbles). They’re all a little subdued, declining their usual chapter of _HP_ since Carter’s already down for the count. So they all say goodnight and leave Frank to feel like a complete and utter failure by himself on the couch.

Even the dogs have chosen to sleep curled up on the foot of the bed with Corey and Carter.

 

*

 

Saturday morning, Frank wakes up way before usual, before the boys start their pre-cartoon stir, before his body aches for coffee, before the sun’s barely halfway over the horizon. He thinks, _it’s too fucking early for this shit_ and attempts to roll over and knock the fuck out when he realizes what woke him. 

The boner of all boners is sitting heavy and thick in his lap, nestled against the thigh of his sweats, peeking out through the slit in his boxers. It’s humid heat, making his mouth go slack when he finally roughs a hand down for a proper grope rather than the insistent mattress-humping he’d apparently been doing.

It only takes a few minutes for his brain to boot up, though, and when he remembers that Corey’s still in the habit of invading Frank’s bed when he first wakes up and that Carter likes to do a flying elbow about thirty minutes after that while Curtis putters around in the kitchen making a Jethro-bowl (seriously, he uses a mixing bowl instead of the standard ceramic ones like normal people) of cereal before Frank has time to gather his bearings and intercede. With a horrified, and admittedly frustrated, groan, Frank yanks his hands out of his pants.

Sweat beads up at his temples, stomach clenching, and Frank realizes that he’s sort of been a little preoccupied and has been neglecting his body and his body is _not_ okay with it. His bed is absolutely not the place to see to it, not anymore, and his brain says, “Hey! Your bathroom has a lock! And a nice, spacious shower!” So, to appease the precarious systems of his body, Frank shuffles to his ensuite, cranks the heat on the shower, strips, and hops in with a happy sigh.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly Frank is close to losing it, and then he figures that hey, what the hell, he hasn’t done this in a while and he’s got nobody to impress. His body’s buzzing beneath the water pelting down his back, one hand gripping his balls and the other working his cock with quick, even strokes. He chokes back his noises – shuddering and shallowly gasping as his cock twitches and empties. It’s _unreal_ how good it feels.

For a while, he just stands underneath the spray with his head down and his eyes closed, water dripping off the end of his nose, the tip of his chin. Eventually he gets his shit together enough to wash and rinse and towel off, brush his teeth, creep down the hallway into the kitchen to make some coffee. His Kindle is on the end table beside his recliner, so Frank nabs it and settles into the morning quiet with his steaming mug and contentedness.

 

*

 

He’s slowly making his way through his millionth re-read of _Catcher in the Rye_ , still noticing little things that he hadn’t before, and sipping on his coffee when Corey emerges from the hall, swiping sleepily at his eyes and frowning like the world’s done him a disservice.

“W’as dat I ‘mell?”

“It’s coffee,” Frank answers. He motions him over, holding out his coffee cup. It’s half-empty, lukewarm. Corey sticks his face in it. “Dat ‘mells good,” he says.

“I know, man,” Frank solemnly agrees.

With wide eyes he asks, “Can I ha’ some?” The effect is exponential when he pouts out his lower lip and Frank thinks, _eh, what the hell,_ and nods. It’s black, lukewarm, and he made it strong enough to send the hairs on the back of his neck rigid, so it’s only understandable when Corey spits it back into the mug, declaring it, “Ucky!”

At the commotion, Carter comes into the living room making a, “What’s so funny and why am I not included?” expression with the dogs trailing at his heels. Corey seems to infer and exclaims, “Toffee’s ‘ucky. I don’t yike it.” Then he turns to Frank as Carter’s climbing up into the chair beside him, moving Frank’s Kindle to the end table. “Can we ha’ some tereal?”

And so it seems Frank’s day has officially begun, a whole two hours before average.

He lets the boys, Curtis included after he finally stumbles out of his room, sit at the coffee table with their cereal bowls, raptly watching _Teen Titans_ while Frank works his way through a massive pile of laundry. After enlisting their help in folding, they go back into the living room and apparently engage in some kind of WWE deathmatch if the noise level is anything to go by. That goes on until Frank hears a loud crash, and then silence.

“Boys?”

Silence greets his ears.

Sighing, Frank shoves the dresser drawer shut, leaving the rest of the rolled up shirts and boxers on top of it, and goes to assess the damage. First, he sees Corey standing behind the couch, then there’s Carter and Curtis whisper-shouting at each other as they try to reattach a severed leg from the coffee table. He clears his throat and they all three look at him guiltily. And, Jesus, he can’t even be mad.

“Why don’t you guys play outside until I finish up with the laundry,” he suggests, keeping his expression carefully neutral.

Curtis, the bravest of the three, asks, “Are you mad?” and before he can even get the question all the way out, Carter is wailing, “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to, we were just –”

Frank shakes his head. “I’m not mad, I’m not – _Carter_ – I’m not mad. It’s okay.” Shit, it’s only a forty-dollar flimsy thing from Ikea. It served as his dinner table for the first few months of getting this place and it’s been through more abuse than any other piece of furniture in the house. In fact, he’s surprised it’s lasted this long. “Just, you three take the dogs in the backyard for a little bit.”

Nodding, they all three slink away and Frank tries not to laugh. He probably should be mad but he’s just so not feeling it. Nobody was hurt; so, no harm, no foul.

Fifteen minutes of sorting lights and darks later, Frank answers a call from his mom. Apparently, there’s more evidence on Dani’s case – the entire facility was drug tested and put through lie-detector testing, and it looks like there’s another couple of nurses who failed, _and_ reports from the lab revealed that Dani’s prints weren’t on the pill bottles they found in her car. But there were prints from a co-worker. 

“Does that mean she’s free to go?” Frank asks around the way his stomach drops and his heart skips a beat. “Is she coming home?”

His mom sympathetically clucks her tongue like she knows exactly what Frank’s feeling, which, knowing her, she probably does. “It’s looking like she’ll be acquitted if you ask me. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but yeah, Frank, it looks like she’ll be back home before too long.”

A scant two hours later, Frank takes the kids to the boardwalk to work out all of that contained energy and to show them that he’s seriously not mad. It’s cloudy and warm and the salt from the breeze makes weaving between guidos, guidettes, and tourists worth it. Carter has Mama’s leash and Curtis is carrying a lazy Sweet Pea while Corey holds Frank’s hand. 

Gulls call and people are yelling and laughing and it’s a lot of excitement for the kids. Frank’s glad to see them smiling again after this morning and he selfishly takes a few pictures with his phone for commemoration. They’re all squinting and cheesing massive grins and they decide to walk the entire length of Point Pleasant before getting some food – sausage and peppers for Curtis, waffles and ice cream for the other two, and popcorn for Frank. 

Carter is super adamant about going into the aquarium, and after yesterday Frank feels like he owes him one so he makes promises to do so after taking the dogs back home and feeding them some real food. They load back up after a bit more beach frolicking and Frank drives slowly home, smiling to himself as they all drift to sleep within minutes.

When they get home, he shuts the dogs into the laundry room with their beds and potty-pads, food and water. He makes a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the ride back, grabs an armful of water bottles and shoves everyone back in the car. 

They make it back to Jenkinson’s just in time to see the Atlantic Sharks get fed a nice messy bucket of chum at which Frank tries very hard not to gag, but Carter and Corey and even Curtis are watching with morbid curiosity. The sharks tear at it until there’s nothing left but a red tint to the water and Frank will admit that he’s fascinated as well.

“Sharks, man,” he hears a familiar voice say, “Beautiful in a terrifying way, just like many other apex predators.”

Without turning, Frank places it as one Mr. Way and just when he’s about to respond Carter alternately whispers and shouts, “Turner! Hi, Turner Way – hey, Frankie, look! It’s Turner and her dad, we hafta go talk to ‘em – hi!”

Jesus, Frank knows for a fact that he’s lacking quite a bit on the game front, but this kid is adorably hopeless. Carter tugs again and so Frank doesn’t have any other choice but to look up. Mr. Way is standing there, looking at them with a weirdly fond smile on his face.

“Hello, Mr. Way,” Frank says evenly, because he is slightly smoother than Carter. In all actuality, his tongue is feeling a bit thick in his throat as he takes in the way Mr. Way’s dressed like a fashionable hobo. In the weird light bouncing off of the aquarium glass he notices flecks of gray in his hair. 

“Please,” he returns out of the corner of his mouth, “Gerard.” For a few awkward seconds, Frank wonders if it’d be too forward to have Curtis watch all of the kids while they steal away into a maintenance closet to make out – his mouth is literally that tempting. It’s red and the upper bow matches fully with the slightly uneven bottom lip, chapped and very enticing. “Is this the whole crew?” he eventually asks.

Frank stammers out, “Yeah – yep. This is Corey,” he says, bouncing his hip a little as Corey tucks his face into Frank’s neck to hide, and then he points to Curtis whose face is still basically pressed up against the glass, “and that’s Curtis.”

“Sweet deal!” Mr. Way – _Gerard_ – smiles brightly. “Well, we’re about to head over to the penguins next, if you guys wanna join.”

Carter makes the decision for them, shouting, “Yeah!” and bouncing excitedly on his toes as he inches his way toward Turner. He turns back toward Frank, already begging with his customary, “Please please please please please please please?” 

Frank just cuts it short after the first ten and says, “Yeah, sure. If you don’t mind of course.”

The penguins eat their fish with a little more finesse than the sharks, and the whole time Turner and Carter are chattering excitedly while Curtis takes Corey from Frank and gets them as close to the tank as is legal between all of the tourists. Frank watches Gerard nod his permission for Turner to get closer, leaving the two of them to hang back on their own. 

“So,” Gerard says slowly, “Were you guys planning on heading to the beach afterward?”

Shaking his head, Frank answers, “We already did the whole boardwalk-beach thing this morning. Carter just didn’t want to miss the feeding frenzy, so we took the dogs back home and came back.”

Gerard nods, shoving a hand in his pocket. The movement, and he doesn’t really know what it is about it, draws Frank’s eyes toward the collar of Gerard’s shirt, how it’s thin and worn and looks super comfortable, specked with what could be paint along the shoulder. “Turner wanted to see the sharks.” He pauses, smiles conspiratorially, and adds, “I wanted to see the seals.”

“Well then, Gerard,” he says, testing out the weight of his name, “It looks like you’re in luck. If we wrangle up the kids and head that way, we’ll probably make it just in time to see them.” His name feels foreign, soft around the edges. Frank likes it.

It doesn’t take long to round up the crew because as soon as Frank says, “Seals,” Carter is dragging Turner out of the mass by her hand and Curtis is looking moony enough to weave his way out with Corey. He’s polite and everything and Frank finds himself grinning with pride. They make their way to the seals’ tank and they’re so much livelier than the other animals that Frank can’t help but laugh as they do their tricks and bark and clap their fins. It’s a really good time and, after they’ve all made their way through to the touch-tank one last time, Frank finds himself reluctant to say goodbye. Curtis is totally drooping and Corey is asleep against Frank’s shoulder and even Carter looks a little worn out.

Frank says, “It’s been rad, but I think it’s time for us to head back home.”

“Understandable,” Gerard says, ignoring the way Turner’s tugging at his hand and telling him to “make them come with us to the beach.” He bends and tells her that Frank and his boys need to go home and rest, promising they’ll build sandcastles and play mermaids before he finally smiles and says, “We had fun. Hopefully we’ll see ya some other time.”

And yeah, Frank hopes so too.

 

*

 

Time passes quickly, unnoticeably; the boys are more than used to Frank and into the swing of their routines. They’re destroying his furniture and eating his food and terrorizing his dogs on a daily basis. Frank finds himself more content than he’s felt in a long while. Before he knows it, a whole month has gone by. 

At first, there had been a metric fuck-ton of anxiety and self-doubt, and now he feels like this is definitely something he could do. They didn’t ask for this, and in all honesty neither did he, but they’re in it together and they’re making the best out of it and Frank is finding it easier and easier each passing day.

One evening the moon’s high in the early evening sky and the wind is surprisingly warm. The boys are in the backyard running around and playing, the dogs barking and nipping at their heels, while Frank’s sitting on the back porch. Little bits of gravel bite into where his hands are braced against the concrete and yet Frank’s too content to brush them away. He’s just watching the boys, smiling and laughing and goading them on, and he feels it. This is totally something he could do in the long run.

“Frank, Frank, Frank,” Carter says, tugging on Frank’s shoulders when he comes to sit beside him. He’s sweaty and out-of-breath and stinky in the way that only boys can manage. “Frank, it’s almost Curtis’s birfday. He’s gonna be _thirteen_. Does that mean he won’t talk to me anymore ‘cause he’s a teenager? I saw on a TV show once that teenagers can’t talk to little kids an’ I’m a little kid and Curtis is my big brudder and –”

“Dude,” Frank interjects, wrapping an arm around Carter’s shoulders, “Tell you what. If you tell me what Curtis wants for his birthday, I’ll make sure that he doesn’t stop talking to you. Deal?”

With a solemn nod, Carter scurries away, resuming the game of tag with Curtis and Corey and Mama and Sweet Pea. They keep running and playing until Frank’s ready to wind down for the evening. The smelly boys pile onto the living room floor for a few episodes of _Teen Titans_ on Netflix, arguing over who is which character. For some reason they unanimously decide that Frank is Beast Boy, which, yeah, okay. That works just fine.

“Fine,” he acquiesces, “but that means that Curtis is Robin and Carter is Cyborg.”

Carter, laughing, shouts, “I _told_ you!” while Curtis rolls his eyes and says, “Whatever.”

Through bedtime snacks and baths and forcing them to brush their teeth and the thirteenth chapter of _Harry Potter_ Frank can _feel_ it – these are _his boys_. Even if they’re not his boys, they’re still his boys; he knows it doesn’t make a ton of sense but it’s the truth. It’s raw and bright and Frank finds himself smiling into his pillow as he drifts to sleep that night.

 

*

 

On Friday morning, Frank gets to work a little bit early so he lets Carter sit with him in what he calls the Commander’s Chair. He gets all moony-eyed when Frank formally asks if he’ll be his First Officer and then Carter nods like it’s a solemn vow. It cracks Frank’s shit up.

Not even five minutes later, Bob arrives and, though he makes a disapproving face at him, Frank notices that he gives Carter a slight quirk of the mouth that could easily be misconstrued as a smile if one were not familiar with Bob Bryar. As it goes, Frank _is_ and Bob doesn’t appreciate the smirk that Frank sends his way.

“Alright,” Bryar says, “Forward the phones to my desk. You’ll be in the North Gym all day with our special guest, so you go help them set up or whatever. Get out of here.”

With a salute, Frank says, “You got it,” to Bob and then smacks a kiss on Carter’s temple and banishes him to Ms. Ballato’s class to annoy her before the other students arrive. He whistles as he walks down to the gym, waving and greeting the students as they walk past him. They’re always so fucking enthused about everything, which is probably the main reason Frank thinks they’re so much better than teenagers. The perpetual angst has nothing on the wide-eyed innocence, the stupid decisions or the unparalleled resilience. And then, once they’ve grown out of the angst, they’re pretentious douchebags that think they know everything. Kids are the way to go.

_Fuck, he thinks, I’m getting old. Bitter and jaded._

When he finally opens the double doors to the North Gym, Frank is assuaged with the overwhelming scent of stale air and dust. Coughing, he looks around for the supposed “Special Guest” which, why the fuck Bob wouldn’t tell Frank the dude’s identity is beyond him, but finds that it’s empty. Just as he’s giving up to go tell Bob, “Ha-fucking-ha, you know I’m allergic to dust you bastard,” and pull on the dude’s beard, the double doors swing open and in rushes Gerard.

Only he doesn’t immediately see Frank, so Frank kind of has to steady the guy with hands on his arms when he almost collides right into him. “Whoa, there,” he says. This is the second time now. One more time and people will think their lives are a rom-com.

“If we keep running into each other, people are going to think we’re in a romantic comedy or something,” Gerard says breathlessly, beaming a smile.

Laughing, Frank says, “Oh my god, I’m not even kidding, I was literally just thinking that.” And then he pauses, letting his hands fall to his sides, because _oh my god, wait, does that mean he’s interested?_

“Great minds,” Gerard muses. There’s a brief quiet moment where he pushes his sleeve up his forearm a bit and Frank is entranced by the exposed skin, the errant dark freckle or two standing out against the paleness. “So, anyway, I was thinking that we could set up along that back wall – I have a couple of tables in my car. But I didn’t wanna do the whole table-chair thing for the kids. I brought like eight million sheets that we can lay out over the floor. Think that’ll work?”

“Uh,” Frank says intelligently. And then, “So wait, _you’re_ the special guest? Wow, I wonder why it was such a big secret, it’s not like we haven’t met before. Ugh. Anyway, yeah, that sounds doable.” He smiles, wondering why the hell he’s talking so much. If he keeps it up then humiliation is nigh. “No need to limit the creative flow.”

“ _Exactly._ ” Gerard ignores everything else Frank said, or maybe he’s just considerate enough to only give semi-confused brows before moving on. Either way, it’s appreciated. “Okay, cool. Well, I’ve got the stuff in my car if you want to come help.”

His car is worth about ten of Frank’s, sleek and black and big enough to hold two folding tables, a few chairs, buckets upon buckets of art supplies, as well as Turner’s booster seat and the odd toy or two. It takes more than a few trips to get everything inside and Frank can’t help but notice the flush that settles high in Gerard’s cheeks. Frank wants to touch his lips to the skin just to see if it’s as warm as it looks. Instead, he clears his throat and works on setting up the tables and chairs. By the time he’s done that, Gerard’s only laid out a handful of the sheets, splotched and splattered with paint and bleach, so Frank takes a few and lines them out in the approximate pattern.

Gerard directs Frank to put specific buckets on certain sheets and starts setting up the main table the way he wants.

After the pledge of allegiance and standard announcements courtesy of Bob, they have to wait a good half-hour before the first class is scheduled to come in. In the meantime, Gerard’s sitting at the table while Frank’s hovering, skimming his fingers over the mason jars and stacks of tissue paper and the bucket full of rice. The grains are cool and smooth between his fingers and Frank wonders what they’re going to do with all of this stuff.

When he looks up with the intention of asking what all they’ll be doing, he catches Gerard looking at him. Gerard blurts, “Have you ever made dye out of Kool-Aid?” and his cheeks are red again even though the gym is relatively cool. He looks back down at the bag of flour in front of him. He measures out another cup into one of the small Styrofoam bowls.

“Hell yeah, man,” he answers, “I used to sink-dye my hair back in the day and Kool-Aid was totally the lazy-slash-poor man’s best friend for upkeep.”

Snickering, Gerard retorts with, “I swear to god, we would’ve been best friends if we’d grown up together. My mom’s a hair-dresser though, and anytime she caught me doing it in the sink, she’d basically snatch me by the ear and force me into her chair.” His focus is intense even though his attention is divided. “Are you from Jersey?”

“Yeah, up by Newark,” he replies, flopping down into the chair next to Gerard. He picks up the container of baby oil, slick on the outside even though it doesn’t look to be open. (And _wow_ if that doesn’t give him a sudden and extremely inappropriate image in his mind’s eye blinking bright and loud.) “Kearny.”

“Oh yeah? I’m from Belleville. We were practically neighbors.” He smiles, glancing briefly at Frank. His hands are busy, still so careful and commanding and Frank is _distracted_ as he attempts to measure out baby oil as Gerard instructs.

They chitchat for a while, keeping everything superficial as they finish readying the stations. Frank appreciates that as well, although he is quite intrigued. He learns that Gerard has an avid love for coffee, enjoys his brother’s company, and spends time hiking through the wilderness when he’s not working or hanging out with Turner (but he’s usually always working or hanging out with Turner, so he can’t remember the last time he actually went). Frank volunteers a little bit of information about himself too, not quite intentionally, but now Gerard knows about his former music days, that he has way more tattoos than are currently visible, and that he also enjoys coffee.

“Which is your favorite coffee place?” he asks, looking at Frank with genuine curiosity. With a sigh, Frank begrudgingly admits that it’s Starbucks and Gerard just laughs. “If you’d said anything different I might’ve been concerned about your taste. And sanity.”

Frank can’t help but giggle at that, setting the last of the bowls down onto the sheets.

“Hey, maybe we should –”

Whatever Gerard intended to say gets lost among the clamor of footsteps thundering down the ramp, the doors swinging open and chatter of kids’ voices. He grins at Frank and then stands, directing the children (from Mr. Urie’s kindergarten class, no less) to stand around the table while he demonstrates the various crafts they can potentially do. Frank is in charge of the “cloud dough” mixtures while Gerard shows them how to glue the tissue paper onto the mason jars to make fun little nightlights (calling them _lanterns_ , of course, because kindergarteners are big kids that don’t need nightlights). 

They make messes fucking everywhere, and Frank doesn’t expect any less from five year olds, so after their projects have been boxed up and shipped back with a weary-faced Brendon, Frank’s cleaning flour from the walls while Gerard tries to pick glue out of his hair. 

A five minute respite between classes is so not adequate, and by the time Ms. Ballato brings down her hooligans, Frank is about ready to pass out. 

Carter and Turner are the first to barrel through the doors, both running to tackle their respective guardians. Other than the initial hug-tackles, they’re both relatively calm while Gerard’s giving his spiel and demonstrating how to do each project. Frank’s rapt as well, impressed with the way that Gerard is still enthusiastic with his presentation even after delivering it for sixth time. He just has a way with engaging his audience, keeping them all entertained while simultaneously informing. Frank thinks it’s pretty fucking rad.

As they’re assisting the other first graders with their projects, Frank catches Lindsey’s eye and doesn’t understand whatever it is she’s trying to communicate. First, she makes big eyes at Frank and smiles. She quirks a brow, tilts her head toward Gerard. She mouths something over the kids’ heads but Frank can’t lip-read for shit, so he just kind of stares until she rolls her eyes and gives up.

First graders require a lot of validation, and Frank praises and encourages and wishes they could get to the last group of fifth graders for the _love of god._

After they’ve sent Carter and Turner and Lindsey and everyone else away, Gerard slumps into one of the folding chairs while Frank collapses on the ground. He’s on his back, spread-eagled with his eyes closed when he asks, “Is that it? Can we be finished? Haven’t we accentuated the ingenuity and enhanced the creativity enough for one day?” He takes a deep breath. “I think that’s enough. I need a nap.”

“How about some lunch instead? Maybe some coffee?”

Pushing up to his elbows, Frank goes, “Oh my _god_ , I’d kill a man for some coffee. Let me go clear it with Bryar real quick. Do you mind swinging around out front to pick me up?” 

“Sounds like a plan.”

Bob doesn’t object to an off-campus lunch because of the special circumstances and Frank promises to bring him back one of those little lemon cake things as a token of gratitude. Gerard’s wearing his sunglasses when Frank hops inside, realizing that the windows are too tinted for him to be able to clearly see inside the vehicle. He’s got the Stones playing quietly in the background, and while they’re not quite punk enough for Frank to consider a favorite, he says, “Sweet,” and smiles when Gerard turns the volume up a bit.

The school is a ten minute drive from anywhere vaguely commercial, so they ride along in silence until they have to decide where to go. None of the fast food places sound all that appealing to either of them, so when Frank suggests that they just go into Target, Gerard readily agrees. There’s a Starbucks inside, so that’s a definite plus as well.

Their coffee orders are quite similar (Frank opting for soy where Gerard goes for non-fat) and they end up just finding little adult-type lunchables that suffice, sitting in the empty nook of the Starbucks. The window filters in a bit of sunlight and Gerard gestures to the table closest to it.

The first thing Gerard asks after they’ve seated and opened up their lunches is, “So, are you a single dad, too?”

Frank chokes a little on his hummus. “Oh,” he says, after he’s recovered, “I’m not – they’re, the kids. They’re my cousin’s kids and I have custody for the time being.” _Jesus_ , he’s awkward.

Gerard swallows a little harshly, eyes wide and says, “Aw, Jesus, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to. Wow, that’s why they always say not to pry.”

Waving a hand, Frank says, “Prying would be asking me _why_. You didn’t know. It’s no big deal.” After a few seconds of silence he says, “You’ve heard Carter call me ‘Frank.’ You really think I’d let my kids call me by name?”

Shrugging, Gerard smiles and says, “Fuck if I know. I thought you were just one of those ‘cool parents’ or something.” The air quotes are audible and Frank can’t help but laugh. He chomps a carrot in half and asks, “Can I be completely rude and pry anyway?”

With a sigh, Frank considers it, really _looking_ at Gerard again. He keeps Frank’s gaze, level and curious, and Frank doesn’t see a single sign of any reason to not trust the dude. “Their mom got caught in some deep shit at work – huge mess. Her trial is supposed to be within the next forty days. I’m keeping them at least until a verdict’s been reached.” Frank kind of spaces for a second, chewing thoughtfully on another stick of celery. “If she really is guilty then I’ll get legal guardianship.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Gerard says, and then, “Now I feel like a douchebag. I’m sorry if that was – if you didn’t want to share. You could’ve just said…” He furrows his brows and then looks back up at Frank. “All _three_ of them?”

“All three of them,” Frank verifies. “And Jesus, I love ‘em to death. This has kind of been one of those life-changing experiences and I don’t know if I ever even want to go back to how it was without them.” And Frank should really, really stop talking. This isn’t therapy, he’s not quite friends with this guy just yet, and he doesn’t have any obligations to him. 

They eat in silence for the rest of the meal, and it’s more like Gerard’s turning the new information over in his head or something, because he doesn’t seem closed off. He grins and gathers up Frank’s trash for him while Frank orders them another round of coffees and that lemon cake for Bob. They drive back to the school in relative quiet too, and it’s startling when Gerard finally breaks it with, “Turner was an accident. The best accident that ever happened to me, but still an accident nonetheless. Her mom and I weren’t ever together or anything, and we’re not even really friends now, but we still split custody.”

Frank doesn’t know what the fuck to say to that so he says, “I don’t know what the fuck to say to that.”

Gerard says, “‘Shut up, Gerard’ generally works pretty well.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘you’re a great father from what I’ve seen’ but that might be a little too honest, ya know?” Frank tugs at the sleeves of his cardigan and keeps his eyes on the road even though he’s not driving.

“Honesty is better than sugar-coating shit, I can tell you that much.” Gerard takes the last turn carefully, parking out by the North Gym. “Besides, I think too honest would be more along the lines of, ‘I’ve kind of wondered what it’d be like to kiss you since I heard you swear on the phone.’”

That leaves Frank gut-punch breathless. He looks over at Gerard, who’s looking back at him, and he can’t help but laugh a little, nervously, and then he says, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot of honesty.” And well, _fuck it_ , he can’t help himself from leaning over the center console and pressing his mouth to Gerard’s. The kiss is off-center, lips-to-lips and so chaste that Frank wants to die.

Frank feels Gerard’s hand thread through the hair at the base of his neck and guide him just a little closer, and Frank doesn’t even register the sound that he makes, the way his mouth goes a little slack before he starts biting at Gerard’s crooked smile.

They pull apart and Gerard says, “So that answers that.”

Back in the North Gym, things are easier, less charged than they were earlier in the morning. Frank catches Gerard’s eye during his little speech to the kids and then he catches Gerard watching him while they’re working on separate stations. Clean-up is anything but a breeze, so they’re still cleaning by the time they hear Bob come on with the afternoon bus call. Carter and Turner show up and beg to help, so Gerard loads them all down with the leftover bags of supplies, the crusted over buckets, the sheets. They all four walk to Gerard’s car together and Frank feels his heart skip a beat.

Carter and Turner seem to be trying to get up a plan to go back to the boardwalk this weekend and Gerard smirks and says, “Well I guess it looks like I’m going to need your phone number so we can arrange this, huh?”

 _This guy is going to be the death of me,_ Frank thinks as he hands his phone over.

 

*

 

Results from extensive R&D in the form of one Carter Wilson arrive into the hands of one Frank Iero late Tuesday afternoon. They’re eating ice cream at Carter’s new favorite joint when he says, “I know what Curt wants for his birfday.”

“Oh, yeah?” Frank asks around a mouthful of caramel drizzled vanilla. “What’s that?”

Carter nods, spooning a good third of his banana split (minus the banana) into his mouth. “He likes hockey. His favorite team is the Devils and he’s always wanted to see them and I asked him who his favorite player was and he said the goalie – I can’t ‘member his name.” He takes another bite. “Maybe you can get him a toy of him?”

Though Carter’s suggestion is totally valid, Frank aims a little bit higher on the spectrum. He lands them with tickets to the first home game of the season for a price that makes him a little nauseous in all honesty, but the look on Curtis’s face when he opens his card and the tickets fall out is absolutely worth it. 

When they get there, both clad in Devils jerseys and face paint, Frank gets Curtis loaded up with all kinds of snacks and gets a beer for himself. Their seats are kind of awesome, high-dollar things near the penalty box, and closer than Frank has ever been before. Before the game starts, their section is pretty sparse, like, weirdly so and Frank wonders if he didn’t get the arrive-fashionably-late memo. Though the rest of the stadium is basically booming – fans goading the other team’s fans, vendors yelling about cotton candy and popcorn and hotdogs, music blasting through the loudspeakers – it’s pretty quiet around them until the rest of their row files in.

Just before the music fades and the carpet gets rolled out onto the ice, Frank hears a familiar voice go, “Excuse me,” and when he looks up to see the shock of dark hair, the sharp nose, the wide green-brown eyes.

“Gerard!” he blurts before he can stop himself.

Confusion and surprise cross Gerard’s features before he registers that it’s Frank with a, “Oh, wow, Frank, hi!” He leans forward, blocking the aisle for the rest of the people trailing in behind him as the lights dim and the stadium goes near-silent. He leans in close, hands curling around Frank’s upper arms as he says in his ear, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Frank shrugs and nods his head toward Curtis, who’s reverently mouthing along to the national anthem as some poor fucker mangles it on the ice. “It’s the kid’s birthday. Paid out the ass for these tickets, but the look on his face –” He shakes his head, smiling still.

“Ah, yes,” Gerard mutters. His nearest friend – a tall Hispanic guy with a very expressive face – gestures to get inside and after a bit of shuffling around, because apparently these all belonged to people he was with, Gerard ends up sitting between Frank and a wiry dude with tired eyes. Actually, he looks quite a bit like Gerard, only bored with life rather than openly emotive.

Everyone sits after the anthem, and the player introductions start with a shit-ton of fanfare. Curtis looks absolutely enthralled and Frank can’t help but feel really fucking proud of himself for getting to see the kid so happy.

“So,” Gerard says above the noise, “This is my brother, Mikey –” he points with a thumb “– and that’s Jonathan, Becky, Ray, Christa, Chantal, and Jimmy.” 

Most of them seem to be occupied but Frank has Mikey’s attention so he greets him with a, “Hey, man. Frank.” He reaches over Gerard, offering a hand. Mikey shakes it firmly, watching as Frank points to his other side. “And this is Curtis.”

He says, “Cool,” in return and Gerard looks between them all, beaming. 

As the players take the ice, the puck is dropped, and the chaos commences, Frank finds that he’s entirely too aware of the heat of Gerard next to him. It’s a pleasant surprise, don’t get him wrong, but now he feels a little bit like he’s supposed to perform – play nice, or something – when he’d just wanted to hang out with Curtis and talk shit on some hockey players. It’s Curtis’s first night as a teenager and Frank had wanted to show him a little bit of the freedom that came before all of the subsequent rules and stipulations of the upcoming era. He supposes he could still do it, because why the fuck not, but he’ll be overly conscious of how Gerard’ll react. 

This is Frank’s first experience in pseudo-parenting and if he fucks it up, he’d rather not be judged immediately. Especially not by Gerard.

The longer the game goes on, the rowdier the section gets, violently loud and reeking of booze, but Curtis looks so damn excited that Frank pushes the concern away. Since they’re right on the opposite side of the penalty box, the first time Barch tosses his gloves to the ice, Curtis is practically standing on his seat and shouting like everyone else around them, goading him on as he slugs one of the New York Islanders in the face. 

“This is _awesome_ ,” Curtis says, “This is the best birthday _ever._ ”

He says it so many times throughout the game that Frank couldn’t wipe the smile off his own face if he wanted to. The rest of the game goes on without a hitch, Frank and Gerard sharing excited grins every now and again, listening to the heckles and taunts of the fans around them – including Curtis and Christa and Jonathan and Becky – and joining in the screams of celebration anytime the Devils get their sticks out of their asses and play some offense. 

An awful call is made and _everyone_ , Frank included, is on their feet and screaming at the refs as Barch skates his way into the opposite side’s penalty box with only two more minutes on the clock. 

It would be incorrect to say that Frank didn’t remember the end of the game – because he does, the Islanders panic and Henrique gets a breakaway, slinging ice fucking everywhere as the puck shoots between the goalie’s lowering knees straight into the net. He remembers with startling clarity, though, the way Curtis’s face is split in the biggest, full-bodied celebratory yell and the strangely gentle hold Gerard’s fingers make around Frank’s wrist. It’s grounding in a really strange way, rooting Frank into his attraction to the guy as opposed to reality. When he looks up, Gerard has a flush high across his cheeks and Frank wants to press his mouth there, inappropriately, in front of everyone. Instead, Frank grins back and slides his hand up far enough to brush his thumb against Gerard’s.

People start clearing out immediately afterwards in a rush to avoid the traffic. Frank and Curtis settle in their seats, feet up on the seats in front of their row, staring out at the ice while Gerard and his group talk amongst themselves. They disperse until it’s just Gerard and his brother. Frank shakes Mikey’s hand and Gerard goes in for a goodbye hug.

“So, d’you have fun?” 

Curtis dazedly nods, eyes unfocused, and Frank can’t help but smile because he totally broke the kid. He’s basically asleep on his feet as they finally make their way out of the arena and toward the parking lot, clutching tightly at the back of Frank’s jersey as he leads them through the celebrating crowd and back to the car.

The next morning, Frank wakes up early (grumbling, though, because it is a fucking Saturday) to pick up Curtis’s birthday cake and get back home so that he has enough time to pack their stuff. 

Something might be said about Frank’s character when they arrive and he can’t force himself to go inside. His mom looks at him like she gets it, patting his hand before she gets out and ushers the boys into the station. 

In the safety of his car, Frank rests his head against the steering wheel and lets himself imagine the events unfolding. He imagines the tears and the clinging and the reluctance at having to leave, the noises Dani’d make when they told her visiting time was over, the way his mom would hang back just enough to give them an illusion of privacy, the way the boys’ faces would be splotchy and tear-stained when they finally got it together enough to leave.

Not too long afterwards, they all file back outside and Frank tells himself not to pry, but he can’t help peeking at their faces. None of them look overly distraught. Curtis looks the worst with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl curling his mouth. Carter and Corey just look mildly uncomfortable and later, Frank tries not to feel much of anything when Carter admits that that wasn’t very fun and he’s glad to be back home. 

 

*

 

Frank’s half-alert in his usual staff meeting chair in the teacher’s lounge, slumped against the side and exhausted as all get-out. 

A Styrofoam cup of coffee appears in his peripherals, hovering tantalizingly close. It takes a minute before he realizes that it’s being offered to him, and when he looks up, sees that the hand holding it is connected to Lindsey, Frank smiles and takes it. “ _Thank you,_ ” he says fervently. “You are a godsend.”

“I know, I know,” she says, smirking as she tosses her hair over her shoulder in a dramatic flip. “I’m the best.”

Frank laughs and sips at it, grateful for the warmth even if it tastes like ass. The coffee maker is kind of old and no matter the size or quality of the filter, it always ends up with grounds in it. Other teachers start filing in as Lindsey takes a seat next to Frank, all in varying stages of zombified grogginess. Saporta looks just about asleep on his feet, Brendon has bags beneath his eyes, and Travie is actually snoring. Patrick is probably the only one that looks vaguely perky.

“So,” Lindsey starts.

Frank looks up at her with both brows raised, taking another sip, humming, “Mm?”

“How was your art day?” she asks. Frank almost aspirates. “You never told me how that went. You and Mr. Way seem to be getting along quite nicely from a bystander perspective.” For a second, Frank sits in silence, smirking around the lip of his cup. He listens to the quiet chatter of the other staff members and tries really hard to keep from blurting out the nitty-gritty details, watching Lindsey start to shift impatiently in her seat. Finally, she goes, “ _Frank_ , for the love of god, just _tell_ me.”

Snickering, Frank says, “It was fun. We talked a bit and he’s really nice after you get beyond the douchebag on the surface.” She laughs and Frank nods. “Seriously, like sunglasses indoors and shit. That’s grade-A douchebaggery, not gonna lie. But, yeah, no. He’s like a genuinely good guy and, I don’t know… You saw how he is with his kid.”

Lindsey nods and sips at her own coffee. The red from her lips stains the cup.

“And, like. We kept running into each other everywhere, and Carter and Turner are basically in love with each other so we figured that we might as well exchange numbers.” He doesn’t know why he’s telling her all of this, really. He’s blaming it on the early hour. He’s not normally this forthcoming with details. “Oh god, and he kisses so _well._ ”

The back of Lindsey’s hand smacks him in the center of his chest and Frank is dangerously close to sloshing his coffee. 

“You didn’t tell me you _kissed_ ,” Lindsey hisses. Frank sees Jessicka approaching and Lindsey looks up at her.

“What’s going on?” Jessicka asks, settling in on Frank’s other side. “What’d I miss?”

“Frank _kissed_ him and didn’t even say anything!”

Mostly because he wasn’t entirely under the impression that they were that close of friends – hell, he hadn’t even realized that they were friends at all until that one day he came to get Turner checked out for the day. Actually, he believed that Lindsey kind of hated him for the longest time.

Jessicka shoves at his shoulder and this time his coffee sloshes onto his pants. “You two are a little violent for six in the morning,” he points out. Now he’s going to smell like shitty French Roast all day long. “Like seriously. How can you even move that fast right now?”

“ _When?_ ” Jessicka asks, glancing over at Lindsey, who’s nodding along.

“Well, the first time was art day…”

Lindsey throws a hand up into the air. “More than once, Frank, are you kidding me?” She huffs and says, “Okay, that’s it. We all need to have lunch together or something. This is ridiculous.”

Frank’s all little taken-aback by that, pleasantly surprised even if all he does is offer a half-shrug in response. He hides his smile in his cup and slumps in the chair as Bob stands behind the podium, surrounding voices dying down into silence. 

 

*

 

_We just made it back from Boston. T’s been asking about Carter all weekend. Think you can meet us tmrw @ the zoo?_

Frank smiles at his phone. Nothing is entirely official, but Gerard’s been getting slightly more and more forward each time they see each other, the touches linger, the words have intent, the glances have a little bit of heat. He sends back, _Sure, it’s supposed to be warmish, so is 2 PM good? Maybe dinner afterwards if everyone isn’t too tired?_ There’s a family-friendly Italian place – the kind where kids can draw on the table cloth – just a few miles away from the zoo that should suffice. Gerard had mentioned being pretty Italian and Frank is too, so what the hell. 

_It’s a plan!_

Allowing himself to delight in it, Frank smiles down at his phone until Curtis comes in and tells him he looks like a doofus. If the kid weren’t twelve – sorry, _thirteen_ – Frank would’ve flipped him the bird. “Ooh, just for that, you get to dry the dishes and put them up,” Frank says, “How about that?”

Curtis huffs and rolls his eyes, but Frank gets the sense that he actually likes helping because he just mutters, “Whatever,” and shuffles into the kitchen to do it. 

It’s eight o’clock and it’s fairly quiet around the house, just about time for baths and dessert before Frank reads them a bit of _Harry Potter_ , but he’s too happy to make them move from where they’re cuddled up on the couch. Corey is half-lying on Frank’s chest, thumb in his mouth, and Carter is tucked up between Frank’s legs. Curtis had been against the other arm of the couch before his moment of sass, so now Carter’s awkwardly leaning against it with just the top of his head. It doesn’t look comfortable at all.

The credits of _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ roll and Curtis shuffles back in. Frank gives his thanks and tells the boys to play rock-paper-scissors for whoever has to shower first. Curtis ends up winning, so Carter stomps off to the bathroom in a pout and Frank corrals the other two into the kitchen for some leftover pie.

After the boys are in bed, Frank settles on his own with his Kindle, finally seeing what all of the _Game of Thrones_ fuss is about. A little before ten, Frank sends a text to Gerard that says, _So how was the trip?_

_Karina is still a horrible human being. Turner made it okay though, she was really excited to get to play with her step-siblings. Traffic in B-town is fucking awful._

They text for a little while and by eleven, Gerard calls Frank and the first thing he says is, “Sorry, I’m too tired to type now, but I didn’t want to stop talking to you.”

It makes Frank laugh. “Go to sleep!” he says, “You’ve had a long week and you need some rest.”

Gerard whines, “But I don’t want to,” and is yawning by the end of it. 

“ _Wow_ , you’re lame,” Frank tells him. “Go to sleep, Gerard.”

“Yeah, okay,” he acquiesces. “Goodnight, I guess.”

Frank returns it and hangs up, smiling like a doofus as he sets his phone on his nightstand. It takes a little while before the tiredness settles in for him, and when he finally does sleep, he dreams of himself and Gerard clad in the boiled leathers and furs of Winterfell, riding horses in the godswood and fighting off Wildlings.

In the morning, with Corey tucked under his arm, Frank wakes to Carter jumping up and down at the foot of his bed, shouting, “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” with each bounce. Frank groans and grumbles, “Ten more minutes,” just because it makes Carter try to roll Frank onto his back and drag him out of bed. He always resorts to tickling, though, and Frank gives as good as he gets, leaving Carter shrieking in laughter.

After breakfast, Frank tells the boys to get ready and digs out some of the out a few disposable cameras from the junk closet, laughing when he finds a bucket hat and the most terrible Hawaiian shirt he’s ever seen. He’s vaguely sure that it’s his friend Dewees’s but he hasn’t seen the guy since his birthday party last year and they’ve only talked a few times since then. Regardless, Frank shoves it back in the closet and makes a mental note to send the dude an email. 

The zoo is a surprise that even Curtis is happy about, claiming that they have to see the tigers and lions while Carter shouts excitedly about elephants and rhinos. Corey mostly claps his hands and giggles and shouts what Frank thinks is, “Bears!” over and over. He sends a text to Gerard asking where he is after they’ve paid and paraded inside, practically jumping out of his skin when he gets the _Right behind you_ and turns to find Gerard standing only a few feet away. Carter runs over to Turner, who initially stands shyly behind her father’s leg but soon bounces over and hugs Carter with a tight squeeze.

Curtis is already halfway down the path to the big cats section and so Frank gestures that way with a nod, pushing Corey’s stroller while Carter and Turner trail behind. Gerard easily falls into step with Frank and says, “Hey.”

Though he’d gotten a taste of the required parental athleticism via the aquarium trip, the zoo, Frank finds, takes that and multiplies it by an exponential that he’s not entirely sure that he can count to. Meaning that Frank is exhausted by the time they reach the rhinoceroses, the kids are still huge bundles of excited energy, and Gerard’s not far behind. Gerard is totally kicking Frank’s ass. He stops briefly at each placard, skimming the information and sharing the most interesting bits as the kids take pictures with their disposable cameras before he moves on to the next. Meanwhile Frank, huffing and puffing and struggling to keep up, watches the line of his back, the sweep of his grin, the length of his strides. It’s all so very distracting, and Frank is more than glad that the kids are capable of entertaining themselves. 

The giraffes are at the far end of the zoo and Frank can hardly breathe as he chases the kids down the winding path. He’s begging for a break, to which the kids ask if they can get drinks from the vending machine and Frank shells out the twenty bucks for them all to do so, grumbling to himself about the exorbitant prices as Curtis extracts Corey from his stroller and leads him over by the hand. 

Gerard settles next to him on the wooden bench, looking out at the nearby pavilion leading into the primate section while Frank eyes the kids. There’s a shitton of people between here and there and Frank’s gut twists with anxiety at the thought of them not being within reach.

Gerard’s laugh startles him from his thoughts. “I know that look,” he says. At Frank’s apparent confusion, he goes on to elaborate, “Dude, I can see the scenarios flashing. You’re gonna give yourself a coronary.” Frank levels him with a glare, but Gerard just sighs, humor lingering in the corners of Gerard’s mouth as his hand lands heavy on Frank’s thigh. “Believe me; it comes with the job description.”

“Yeah, well,” Frank shrugs, grumbling, “I must’ve only gotten the abridged version.”

More laughter comes, and Frank’s pulse settles a bit as Carter waves over at Frank from the little refreshment stretch, skittering back up when he looks down and realizes that Gerard’s hand hasn’t left his leg. His fingers are long and relaxed, curled to the point that they nearly reach the inseam of Frank’s jeans. Frank’s face heats as he looks up and meets Gerard’s eyes – and he’s not even aware. Gerard’s smiling faintly at the kids, though, and paying no attention whatsoever to how the curve of his hand and how this whole thing feels more intimate than…any date Frank’s ever been on in his entire life, basically. 

In a flurry of sound and movement, the kids return with their cans of soda and Curtis sets Corey on Frank’s lap, jostling Gerard’s hand away. 

Clearing his throat, Frank says, “Nothing too sugary, I hope,” even though he knows that’s a lost cause. After shifty grins belying their verbal denials, Frank goes, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Drink up.” Curtis hands Corey’s drink to Frank and Frank steals sips. Within minutes the pops are drained, crushed beneath little sneakers, and disposed of with all the care six-year-olds are capable of mustering. After a quick potty break, Frank ushers them into the primate area. Chimps and apes and monkeys are all sorted by species and Frank relishes in the care Gerard takes in explaining things, answering the kids’ questions and turning to one of the zoo workers when he can’t. 

As they’re winding their way back toward the entrance, Turner spots a face-painting booth and screeches, “Daddy, can we _please?_ ” at the top of her lungs.

Frank’s laughing until Gerard drags him along too.

After all is said and done, Turner and Carter have morphed into a pair of tigers, Corey is a bear, Gerard has a shark on his cheek, and (after much wheedling) Frank is sporting a very manly butterfly. Curtis is the only one left clear-faced, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes at how lame the rest of them are – but to that Frank only says, “Whatever, dude. Your loss.”

By the time they’ve made it all the way back up front and had one last bathroom trip, everyone’s a little bit exhausted and Frank is back to pushing Corey’s stroller up the slight incline. He and Gerard, still immersed in discussion over the merits and shortcomings of remakes versus originals, don’t realize that they’re heading in the same direction through the parking lot. A single car is parked between theirs and when Frank sees it, he laughs with his surprise.

Gerard’s holding a sleeping Turner, talking still in quieter tones as Frank closes the door behind Carter. He can see Curtis’s head rest against the passenger window; Carter’s is an echo in the seat behind him. 

“So that was pretty fun,” Frank muses, crossing his arms over his chest as he follows Gerard over to his own car. He turns it on, adjusts the A/C and tucks Turner inside before quietly closing the door. He mirrors Frank’s stance, resting a hip against his car.

“It really was.”

Biting his lip, Frank mulls over the consequences before he unfolds his arms and closes the distance between them, relishing in the relief he feels as Gerard’s hands come down to rest on his hips. “I’m not imagining this ridiculous amount of tension between the two of us, am I?” he asks. He’s probably too close, beyond caring, breathing in the heat and intent in Gerard’s eyes. “Because I don’t think –” he cuts himself off, chuckling humorlessly to himself before he admits, “it’s never been this easy.”

Fully closing the distance, Frank gasps when Gerard takes his face in his hands and presses a kiss to his mouth, pulling away only enough to bite and suck at Frank’s lower lip. He hums a happy sound, dives back in, and Frank returns it, allows himself to get lost for a few blissful moments. Frank lets himself want it, want this, want _them_. It’s not a secret that he likes Gerard, and it’s apparent that Gerard likes him back. But Frank wants _this_ – zoo trips with the kids, stolen moments of affection, shared anxieties – and he knows it’s already way too fucking soon, but he wants it forever.

When they pull apart, Gerard rests his forehead against Frank’s for a moment, lets his hands slide down to on both of Frank’s shoulders, his thumbs meeting at the center of Frank’s throat. It’s a feather weight, an echo of the lightness in his chest. Gerard’s brows furrow the slightest bit before he says, “So…you’re obviously not the only one.”

Huffing a laugh, Frank smirks and returns, “Obviously.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Gerard verifies, nodding. He clears his throat, says, “I don’t do casual.”

Frank wants to retort with, “Well, duh. I would hope not,” but feels like that might be overstepping some kind of invisible single-dad type of boundary. Instead, he says, “Okay.” 

After a few seconds of Gerard scanning his eyes, his face, presumably for some type of tell that might say, “ABORT MISSION,” or something, he finally nods and says, “Okay,” right back.

Not even two seconds later, the horn of Frank’s car is wheezing out an impatient groan and Frank takes a step away from Gerard until there’s an appropriate amount of distance between them. He flaps a hand over at Curtis and turns to back Gerard. “Alright,” he says, smiling as he starts to back away, “Duty calls. Text me?”

Gerard salutes with a grin and Frank can’t help but grin the whole drive home.

 

*

 

On very rare occasions is Frank actually not-busy enough to take lunch away from his desk. When he does, he sends emails to Lindsey and Jessicka and they all figure out how to coordinate twenty minutes together for gossip and relationship updates.

Today, they’ve actually managed to nab a full forty minutes together in the teacher’s lounge.

“One day I’ll actually be worthy of the teacher title and won’t feel so guilty about lounging in here,” Frank muses, scooping up another fork-full of his homemade salad. He picks a single leaf of arugula, dips it in his side container of garlic aioli. “I’ll probably have to get a few of these babies removed first though, huh.” He wriggles his fingers, watching the way his tattoos shift over his hands.

Lindsey shrugs. “Nah, I don’t think Bryar has a problem with tats,” she says. She takes a bite of her sub. “Half the staff is all inked up. Actually, I think him and Patrick and Bill are the only ones without anything.”

 _Introspection,_ Frank thinks, _is overdue_. “So then it was just the fact that I have a shitty attitude, an authority problem, and the propensity to cuss sailor-like in front of anyone and their granny,” he says. He’s mostly focused on middle distance, brought back by the flat sting of Jessicka’s knuckles rapping sharply against his shoulder to see the double Brows of Disapproval. “ _What?_ ”

“Quit fucking beating yourself up, that’s what. God, Frank.” Jessicka tosses her empty paper boat into the trashcan as she shoves the last of her fries into her mouth. Frank can’t really believe she eats the shit they cook in the cafeteria. After that she says, “Hey Linds…” and Frank loses the conversation thread until one of them nudges his shin with their foot.

“What?” He blinks and steadfastly ignores how they both roll their eyes at him.

“Get out of your head and talk to us, dude,” Jessicka says, “We’ve only got like ten minutes left before it’s munchkin time.”

“Gremlin,” Lindsey mutters, probably still sore about getting hustled by her class for an extra recess in place of their usual end of the day story. Frank definitely could’ve told her that first graders are notorious cheaters, but it’s too late now. 

“Whatever.” Jessicka rolls her eyes again. “ _Talk_ , Frank. Any updates with the boyfriend?”

“He’s not –” Coughing, Frank looks down at the table and away from his friends’ faces. He shovels more salad into his mouth. “We’ve just met up a few more times. _With the kids_ ,” he adds at Lindsey’s eyebrow waggle, “so no, there wasn’t any ‘job of any kind. Don’t even ask.” 

“Bet you wish there was,” Jessicka says, smirking.

“No shit.” Frank takes one more bite and closes his various food containers. “I mean…Have you _seen_ his mouth? Or his hands, for that matter. Dude has wicked long fingers and –”

Footsteps approach and Frank abruptly cuts himself off, standing to put his containers into his lunch bag before he can get called out for slacking off and shirking his phone duties. Sure enough, it’s Bryar which means that Lindsey and Jessicka are scrambling up and waving off with a subdued, “Later, Frank,” and a pointed look from Lindsey that means, “You’re going to text me details whether you like it or not.”

Frank is halfway through the doorway before Bob says, “Hey, Frank,” to stop him. He’s standing at the sink, washing out his coffee mug when Frank turns to look back at him. He looks half-past exhausted and Frank remembers that the first big board meeting of the semester is later on tonight with sudden clarity. His shoulders are tense and his beard looks a little rougher than usual.

“You alright?” Frank asks.

“’M fine,” Bob answers gruffly, scrubbing harshly at the coffee stains around the lip of the mug. “For the, uh, festival in a couple of weeks, have you –”

“I’ve already contacted the volunteers, written up the outline and tentative game layout for the gym, set up a meeting with the funnel cake lady, _and_ reviewed the candy budget.” Frank smiles after he’s finished with his spiel, hopefully in a way that looks genuine rather than condescending. “I can email everything to you if you’re ready. I just figured that you’d want to wait until after the board meeting.”

Bob looks surprised, to say the least. His eyebrows are basically in his hairline. “Yeah, after the meeting would be fine.” A flush rises in his cheeks.

Frank would say that he almost looks _proud_ so, taking pity on the dude, he says, “You got it,” and makes a hasty exit. 

It’s a slow day where the phones are concerned, so Frank busies himself by emailing the other vendors for the fall festival and requesting background checks on the workers that’ll be manning the haunted house. After that, the afternoon passes quickly and before Frank knows it, Carter’s sitting in the Commander’s Chair with the biggest shit-eating grin Frank has ever seen.

“Out with it, kid,” he orders, finishing up a report to forward to Bryar.

Carter blurts, “I know what I wanna be for Halloween.”

“Oh?”

“Well, Turner’s gonna be Superman – but not in the stupid suit that everybody wears, ‘cause Tuner said that’s dumb. She wants to be Superman when he’s wearing the glasses and his hair’s all curly like mine and he’s wearing the suit _underneath_. ‘Cause it’s a secret. And so she said that I should be Lois Lane ‘cause they’re in love like me and Turner. Please, Frank, _please?_ It’ll be the awesomest costume ever.”

Apart from his heart melting into a puddle, Frank mulls over possibilities for the costume and resolves to consult Gerard for ideas. Eventually, after more begging, Frank acquiesces with a, “We’ll see.”

 

*

 

“Clark Kent and Lois Lane. How fucking cute.”

With the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, Frank rinses out the very last cup and places it in the dish drain. “I _know,_ ” he says into the receiver. He dries his hands and takes a peek between the curtains at the volume influx – Mama barks and nips at a squealing Carter’s heels. Sweet Pea is a little dark lump against Curtis’s thigh where he’s lying in the shade of the porch reading one of Frank’s books. “So, I’m sure, with you being an artsy dude and all, that you already have about sixty-five ideas running through your brains.”

A light chuckle, nearly condescending and definitely smug, reaches Frank’s ears and then Gerard says, “Maybe a few.” 

“Spill.”

They talk about pros and cons of doing an actual genderswap for Lois and mull over good places to procure costume items before hanging up. Afterwards, Frank calls the boys inside for baths and _Harry Potter_ , and when he finally gives Carter a solid, “Yes, you can be Lois Lane,” he actually stands in the chair and screams so loud that Frank’s afraid the neighbors are going to call the cops.

Curtis rolls his eyes, Corey looks confused, and Frank tries his hardest not to smile as he banishes Carter to stand quietly in the corner for five minutes.

 

*

 

“Cedar Creek Elementary, this is Frank. How can I help you?”

“Oh,” Gerard voice croons in his ear, “so official. You’ve come so far in such a short amount of time.” Frank stays silent, mostly because Bob’s looming, and Gerard seems to pick up on it so he says, “I was actually calling because I wanted to see if you could get lunch. I’m on my way right now.”

“I’ll have to check with my supervisor. I will definitely have to get back to you on that,” Frank replies as quietly as he can without sounding suspicious. His cheeks burn as he puts the phone back into the cradle. Sighing, he sends an email to Lindsey and Jessicka in their newest set of code phrases (because fuck if they’re going to get caught chatting about personal shit on the work server) including the whole “Wonderful weather we’re having” thing from _Captain America_. 

Not even ten minutes later, Gerard breezes in, sunglasses tying together the loose sweater and dark jeans of course, and settles a bright orange lunch pail on the high counter of the front desk. 

“Wow, you know I couldn’t actually see you behind there, Tiny,” Gerard points out.

Because Bob is in his office, Frank flips Gerard the bird and, after sharing a wry smile, asks, “Is this for Little Miss Turner?” 

Gerard gives an affirmative and, finally, pushes his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head. His eyes sparkle, light catching just right through the glass doors, as he leans forward to rest his elbows against the counter. Frank busies himself buzzing Lindsey’s classroom – “Ms. Ballato, could you please send someone up to retrieve a delivery?” – and then they make school appropriate small talk until Gerard abruptly cuts himself off and says, “Hey, little dude!” and lifts his hand for a high five.

Carter jumps up and slaps it, saying, “Hi, Turner’s dad!” He’s grinning as he rounds the corner and stands in the opening of the front desk’s partition for a second before he darts forward for a hug. “Hi, Frank.”

“Hey, kiddo,” Frank replies. He presses a kiss to the mop of curly head before Carter can evade him. There’s an embarrassed flush high on his cheeks when Frank hands him the lunch pail with strict instructions to deliver it to Turner as soon as he gets back to the classroom. He treats it like a serious mission and Frank holds a salute until Carter returns it.

When Frank looks back up, Gerard’s mouth is pulled to the side with amusement. “Ready to go?” he asks.

Frank tells Bob he has the phones (along with giving him a full-disclosure of his completed tasks) and pointedly waits until they’re safely in Gerard’s car before pulling him in for a kiss in greeting. It seems to take him by surprise, if the noise he makes into Frank’s mouth is an appropriate indication, but he relaxes into it. 

“Hey,” Gerard says, face still close in proximity, lit up with delight. He pulls back and buckles himself in. “So, I was looking for some supplies for work and I found this store – oh, shit, sorry – that’s mostly thrifty. Like, barely used clothes and art supplies and –” he breaks off to scream, “You mother _fucker_ ,” out the window and Frank’s still giggling by the time they park outside of the store, aptly named Stuff, Things, and Junk. Gerard’s still explaining what all they’ll find within and Frank only half-listens while recalling his initial idea for Carter’s costume.

Inside, Frank flanks Gerard as he leads the way through aisles and aisles and aisles of marked down shit. He talks pretty much the whole time, telling Frank about his vision, how Turner wants to cut her hair so that it looks accurate and how he can’t actually do it without asking her mother first. All the while, he’s grabbing up materials and holding things out for Frank’s opinion, vetoing anything that Frank doesn’t show immediate enthusiasm toward with a, “Gotta go with your gut, Frank.” Frank can’t really help it; he’s distracted by the way Gerard speaks out of the side of his mouth, the way his steps are so sure, and his hands – _Jesus_ , his hands.

By the time all is said and done, Frank walks out of the store with a button-up shirt, a pair of flats, and a cute little cardigan that Gerard says would work perfectly. Gerard took a bolt of material on Frank’s behalf, assuring him, “No, no, seriously – my gramma taught me how to sew. I’ve been making Turner’s costumes for years. Seriously, I don’t mind!” when Frank makes frowny noises about not being able to find an appropriate high-waist pencil skirt for Carter.

Later, after they’ve made it back to Cedar Creek and Frank’s shoved his procurements into his car and Gerard’s still hanging around, Frank goes, “I was thinking about taking Carter to get ice cream after school today.”

“Yeah?” Gerard asks, mouth in a crooked smirk.

“You and Turner should join us,” he replies, trying not to smile like a loon when Gerard says, “Okay,” before he even finishes the sentence. After making sure that the coast is clear, Frank leans in and kisses him before heading back inside.

He can’t wipe the smile off of his face for the rest of the day to save his life.

Not that he’d want to.

 

*

 

They’re all sat down at the dinner table, for once eating like a normal group of family rather than the barbarians they normally are, when Frank hears his phone ring from the down the hall. He excuses himself, telling Curtis to make sure nobody gets extra garlic bread until he gets back and asking them all to keep their spaghetti fingers to themselves. 

“Frank,” his mom says when he finally answers, and he knows, he just _knows_ from the tone of her voice that it’s news he doesn’t want to hear. “They found her not-guilty. She’s been acquitted. She gets to go home.”

And just like that, Frank’s world is right back where it was months before, only now it feels wrong. It feels wrong to be back in the gravity he’d been in before rather than hurtling toward oblivion at the speed of light. It’s wrong to be back where he was and it’s wrong that he feels so wrong.

“Um,” he says, voice strangled and tiny, “do you think you could come over and tell them? I don’t think I can – I can’t.”

“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes, sweetie.”

Frank breathes, “Thanks,” and hangs up. He sits on the edge of his bed, puts his head between his knees and takes a deep, deep breath.

 

*

 

Frank feels like a total asshole, but he stays in his room when his mom gets there to relay the news. Though the subsequent cheers are muffled through his closed door, Frank’s heart cracks and splinters and the shattered fragments fall into the pit of his gut. He just couldn’t stand to see the excitement on their faces, and that makes him feel like absolute _shit_ because that’s their _mother_.

After all is said and done, the boys begin to pack up that night and are so excited that they only go to bed with encouragements that verge on threats of bodily harm. Frank hugs them too tightly before bed and doesn’t sleep. He lies awake, listening to the sounds of the house, the shifts of the boys, the patterns of their snores. It hurts to think that it’s his last night with them and he wasted it hiding away in his room.

In the morning, Corey’s snug against his side with a hand curled into the cotton of Frank’s sleep shirt and for once Carter isn’t bouncing insistently on the mattress. Frank smells vanilla and cinnamon wafting in through the cracked door and then he remembers: his mother is here and today she’s taking the boys.

His smile is watery as he listens to Carter talk about his dreams and watches Corey get syrup all over his face. Curtis watches him back. His mom squeezes his left hand every now and again and Frank feels too nauseous to finish his pancakes. After they’ve washed up, Carter insists on feeding the dogs and nearly cries when Frank says that they can’t come along. Corey seems to pick up on Frank’s despondency and spends the whole morning clinging to Frank’s leg. He falls asleep during the drive, though, while Curtis watches the scenery with his forehead pressed against the glass, occasionally meeting Frank’s eyes via the passenger mirror. 

Dani’s apartment building comes into view a scant half-hour later and Frank can’t help his shuddery inhale. 

He masks it beneath fake enthusiasm, clapping his hands together and saying, “Let’s get you boys inside.” 

Frank and Linda both heft the boys’ additional bags onto their shoulders and corral them into the stairwell with little fanfare. They knock and Dani opens the door – and from there it gets a little fuzzy, like Frank’s brain has chosen to stop focusing on the goings-on to preserve his fragile emotional state, or something. 

He finds that he can’t remember much in hindsight. He knows that Dani had squealed and taken the boys into her arms. He knows that her eyes had been hard rather than inviting. He knows that Curtis had cried and Carter had shouted excitedly and Corey had left Frank’s side to join his family, crying, “Mama!” Frank doesn’t remember much else, other than Dani asking the boys if they missed her and how she’d never let that happen again, how her voice was strangely pitched, almost flat when she’d looked at Frank and said, “I owe you so much.”

It’s vague, but he does remember hugging each of the boys tightly and then Carter’s confused crying ( _and wailing out, “Frank’s not staying?”_ he thinks with throat-tightening clarity) before the door closed behind them. 

Later, when they’re in the car, Frank can barely keeping his shit together. 

It’s not any better when he gets a text from Dani that says, _Can’t thank u enough for what u’ve done. The boys’ll miss you…_

He chokes on the sudden dryness in his throat and sends back, _I’ll miss them too._

_I think it’d be best if u didn’t try to contact us 4 a while. get them used to me again. We’re going to stay with one of my friends in boston._

There isn’t an appropriate word to surmise the incredulous outrage Frank feels at that – raw and terrifying and really fucking overwhelming. He blinks at his phone. “You’ve got to be _fucking kidding me._ ” When he tries to call her it rings once and goes to voicemail.

 

*

 

There’s a warm lump against Frank’s side when he wakes and he says, “Ten more minutes, Carter,” before the previous day comes flooding back. He can’t control the keening noise that escapes his throat, curling in on himself at the abrupt and endless drop of his gut. Embarrassingly enough, Sweet Pea whimpers and scurries off of the bed at the next unsteady breath he chokes out. 

Needless to say, the gnawing emptiness keeps him from leaving the bed all morning, afternoon, and well into the evening. He barely manages to feed his dogs and use the bathroom.

Around dinnertime, however, his body stages a full revolt, so he kicks his own ass into the kitchen for some toast just to get his stomach to shut the hell up. Corey’s chair is still pushed up to the table, though, and Frank sets his mug down so hard the ceramic chips – and he’s irrationally throwing it hard into the sink where it shatters into jagged fragments. It’s a strikingly apt metaphor.

He wonders if this is what Dani felt. Like the air was snatched from her lungs, gravity was turned off, and everything was doused in black and cold and silent. A plunge into deep space.

After that, Frank finally forces himself to find his phone charger. Of course, it’s in Corey and Carter’s room, plugged into the wall from when he’d last read _Harry Potter_ , and it takes Frank all of twenty minutes before he can make his legs function again, carry him back into his room. He mindlessly plugs it in, sits on his bed and stares unseeingly at his wall until the dogs start scratching at his door. As he stands to let them in, his phone vibrates on the nightstand and starts beeping and chiming incessantly with missed text messages and calls and voicemails and emails. Half of them are from his mother, asking if he’s okay and offering condolences about Dani taking the boys away. A handful of messages are from Lindsey and Jessicka, and then the remaining are from Gerard.

Not a single one from his cousin.

Anger consumes him again and he’s scrolling through his contacts until he hits her name, presses the button before he loses his gall, and leaves a voicemail that’s barely short of a barked, “Call me.” He calls again, and this time it goes straight to voicemail. Dani’s ignoring him.

The text message he drafts is harsh and insensitively questioning, so he deletes it and makes himself lie face down on his bed until he’s feeling more humanesque as opposed to a giant ball of rage. He gets up, goes into the living room and pretends to read his Kindle until it’s time to go to bed.

 

*

 

In the days that follow, Frank’s anger easily morphs into despair and he finds himself moping and wallowing in self-pity more often than not. The dogs whining expectantly at the door after he gets home doesn’t help one damn bit. 

“It’s just me, girls,” he hollowly tells his dogs, ignoring the tightness in his throat. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He’s forgotten how to cook for one, so leftovers keep piling up in the fridge, and he ends up using too much laundry detergent and then he practically sobs when nine o’clock rolls around and he feels restless because he doesn’t hear the boys playing rock-paper-scissor and fighting over who bathes first. 

When ten o’clock rolls around and Frank’s had a beer too many and it’s only Thursday night, he gets a text from Gerard that says, _Hey, are you okay? I haven’t heard from you all week…_

Frank carefully texts back, _I am sad and a little drunk._

_why?_

Because he misses his boys. Because the house is too quiet. Because it feels like he’s missing a limb and he has an itch on it and he keeps reaching down to scratch it only to remember with a devastating sense of wrongness that it’s gone. 

A few seconds later, his phone chimes again and it says, _also turner said that carter hasn’t been in all week. Is he sick?? I finished his skirt, btw._

Instead of saying all of that, Frank just answers, _The boys are back with their mom…_ and then a couple of seconds later, he’s hit with a realization, _oh shit, Turner’s going to be so upset. Especially about tomorrow night. Fuck, I’m sorry._

Gerard, the fucking saint, just says, _Don’t worry about it. Kid’s gotta learn about heartbreak sometime…_

 _She’s gonna hate me,_ Frank responds, feeling shittier and shittier as the seconds pass. He curls onto his side.

_It’s not your fault, Frank._

Frank falls asleep before he can feel any guiltier.

 

*

 

Returning to work is little more than out of obligation. Frank’s heart isn’t in it. Frank’s heart isn’t really in much of anything. His routine’s reverted back to the way it was before and it leaves so much extra time that Frank finds himself at work nearly an hour early. 

Lunch with Lindsey and Jessicka is uneventful – on his part, anyway, because Lindsey already knows about Carter’s transferal from an email early last week and she pretty much tells Jessicka everything, so they mostly just talk to each other and thankfully don’t prod about his melancholy state. They both hug him before he heads back into the reception area up front and when he returns to his desk he sees a text from Gerard that says _good afternoon!_ and it works to brighten his day a little bit.

 

*

 

The following day is Halloween, Frank’s thirty-second birthday and consequentially the night of the Fall Festival. Work passes in a blur of verifying that all of the various vendors will arrive on time and kids getting sent up to the nurse’s office with upset stomachs in the late afternoon. Bob’s actually smiling at one point (probably at Frank’s pain) and Lindsey and Jessicka present him with gifts at lunch time. Neither of them bat an eye when he wraps his arms around their necks and pulls them in for hugs.

Frank runs home to grab his costume – a bowtie, suit jacket, monocle, and top hat while the rest of his work clothes suffice for most of it – and a bite to eat before he returns to Cedar Creek and helps coordinate things. He’d signed himself up to work the trick-or-treat circuit over a month ago and, while he still feels a sense of loss at the fact that Carter isn’t there with him, Frank finds that he really does enjoy seeing all of his coworkers and the students in costumes. 

About halfway into the night, Gerard shows up in the circuit carrying a moping Turner. He’s in the middle of sighing, “Please just say, ‘Trick-or-treat, Turner,’” when he notices who’s doling out the candy. “Oh,” he says, “Frank. Hi.” His face splits into a grin, bouncing Turner up a bit on his hip. 

Her hair isn’t cut, Frank notices, but pinned up and styled to look short and appropriately curly in Clark Kent fashion. Her eyes are still a little watery behind the lenses-free black frames. She manages, “Hi, Mr. Frankie,” after looking around to see that Carter’s nowhere to be found. Frank doesn’t blame her.

He swallows the sympathetic noise that threatens to escape and instead goes, “ _Wow_ , you are officially the coolest Clark Kent I have ever seen.” 

Turner perks up a bit more at that and asks, “Are you The Penguin?”

Frank can’t hide his surprise – and a look at Gerard reveals the proudest beaming smile he’s ever seen on anyone – and he says, “As a matter of fact, I am!” Then he shrugs and says to Gerard, “I know we were planning the whole _Superman_ route but, well.” He chokes and Gerard nods like he understands. It helps tremendously. “At least it’s the DC universe.”

“Hey,” Gerard says, setting Turner down. Frank finally sees the full outfit and can’t help but marvel at the embroidered red “S” peeking out between her white button-up, the red tie pinned to the side. “Wanna take a picture with Mr. Frankie?”

And hell yeah she does. It’s hilarious, how she brightens up and poses without needing instruction while Frank tries to look at menacing as possible, squinting to keep the monocle in place, but probably looks ridiculous. He finds that he doesn’t care. One of the parents nearby volunteers to take a picture of all three of them – and Frank’s grateful, because Gerard makes an awesome Jonathan Kent – and tells them that they’re such a cute family. Frank is stammering his way through telling her that, no, they’re not when he’s struck silent by Gerard’s simple, “Thanks!” 

A few minutes of conversation later (where Frank pretends that the last five minutes did not actually happen) and Frank finally manages to put candy into Turner’s pillowcase. They go with a pair of waving hands and Frank spends the rest of his shift mustering up as much excitement as possible. 

After they close the circuit, Frank sends a _Where are you?_ text to Gerard and gets, _Currently fishing for candy in the gym._ in return. Lindsey’s in charge of that booth, so Frank hightails it to the gym and scans the crowd until he sees it along the back booth. When he locates them, Gerard has his phone out and is busy recording her reactions to yanking the line back over the cardboard “sea” to reveal a couple of candy packets between clothespins. 

Frank taps him on the shoulder and says a, “Hey,” that gets lost in the gym’s clangor. Kids are running all around, screaming, eating candy. Gerard smiles, though, and that helps with the wistfulness eating at Frank’s chest.

After following Gerard and Turner around, Frank starts to feel a little bit pathetic and is in the midst of trying to tell Gerard goodbye out at the funnel cake booth when he hears, “Gerard!”

Turner wriggles away from Gerard’s hand, shouting, “Mommy!” as she sprints toward a leggy, dark-haired lady. He feels Gerard’s pinky graze his own, ignores the shock of heat it sends up to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

Frank hangs back while Gerard and Karina hash out details of Turner’s pick-up for Sunday night and feels more awkward and out of place than he ever has in his entire life. He scrolls through his phone, sends a group text to Lindsey and Jessicka that says, _hope you two have fun tonight. try not to scare the kids. no making out behind the cardboard sea._

That gets a _fuck off_ from Jessicka and a _too late ;). have fun with the Ways!_ from Lindsey. 

Gerard returns to Frank’s side with a disheartened sigh, leaning against the brick half-wall beside him. “Well,” he says, running a hand through his hair, “There goes my evening…I thought she’d at least let us go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood before she pulled the ‘it’s _my_ weekend’ card.” He sighs again, stands, and shrugs with a shake of his head, smile blooming in place of the crooked frown. “Want to share a funnel cake?”

Blinking, Frank says, “Uh, _yeah_.” Because _funnel cake_. They stand in line together, telling kids how awesome their costumes are and ignore the glances of their parents until the kids finally tell Frank about how cool it was that he played “The Monster Mash” over the intercom at the end of the day. He gets the “ _Oh, you work here,_ ” sighs of relief. Gerard laughs. 

Their funnel cake is piping hot and Gerard volunteers to hold the plate so that the majority of powdered sugar doesn’t end up on Frank’s slacks and it ends up being a lost cause anyway, because when they’ve almost finished it off the wind blows the plate in Frank’s direction. They’re still laughing about it later – when Gerard’s patted him down with paper towels in the old gym’s bathroom, kissed him soundly, and promised to buy Frank a new suit jacket if the speckled stains won’t come out in the wash.

It’s bold and not quite premeditated when Frank says, “Guess you better follow me home to make sure it does,” but it gets a coy smile in return and Frank doesn’t actually give a shit because it’s his birthday and he deserves to be a little happy.

Gerard does end up following him home, his headlights a reminder throughout the drive, as if the anticipatory strain against his zipper isn’t enough. Frank giggles like a loon when Gerard presses against his back, kissing at his neck as he tries to unlock the door. He talks about various fixtures that Gerard inquires about as Frank leads him through the house as he lets the dogs outside. Gerard makes a comment about how they have the same refrigerator, so Frank kisses him against it, sliding his hands up into Gerard’s hair while Gerard goes for an ass grope. It’s welcome, to say the least, and Frank nips at Gerard’s lower lip in playful retaliation. 

Frank only pulls away when the dogs start whining, scratching at the door to be let back in. He opens the sliding door and leads them into the utility room, talking to them as he half-watches Gerard quietly take in his surroundings. Gerard’s eyes slide over to him when he starts to strip off his suit jacket, and Gerard approaches, slender fingers outstretched as he says, “Here, let me.” 

Frank’s honestly not sure if the jacket makes it into the washing machine, because his eyes are closed and he’s trying not to shake at the heat Gerard’s putting off as he divests Frank of that, his waistcoat. Gerard’s fingers nimble undo Frank’s bowtie, and Frank’s so close to dropping to his knees before he remembers that he has a perfectly good bedroom only a handful of steps down the hall. Plus his dogs are curled up not even four feet away and that’s just a little weird.

He says as much and Gerard’s laughter, sharp and warm, rings out. Frank suggests the bedroom, the couch, the recliner, anything relatively comfortable and Gerard’s nodding along, crowding up against Frank as he pulls the utility room door closed. 

They stumble down the hall, back into Frank’s bedroom. Gerard makes wide eyes at the oversized mirror against the wall opposite the bed and breathes, “ _Oh._ ” He spins and grins manically at Frank. “This is going to be fun.” 

Mind a little hazy with lust, Frank allows himself to imagine that this domesticity is normal: Gerard twines their fingers together and leads Frank in front of the mirror, then stands behind him, deftly undoes his bowtie from behind, his chin tucked over Frank’s shoulder as they meet eyes. He slowly unbuttons Frank’s shirt, slips it off of Frank’s shoulders, his eyes only leaving Frank’s in the mirror once the ink is revealed. At that point Gerard tucks his face against Frank’s back – the grinning jack-o-lantern, to be precise – and he mumbles, “It’s your birthday.”

Frank nods and knows Gerard feels it, because he meets Frank’s eyes in the mirror again, grinning. 

“This’ll have to be extra awesome, then.” Hands on Frank’s shoulders, Gerard spins him around and Frank watches the way his eyes flicker down to his mouth every handful of seconds as Gerard pulls Frank’s shirt from where it’s tucked into his pants. He unbuckles Frank’s belt, slings it aside, and spins Frank again and pushes until he’s seated against the end of his mattress. Elbows on Frank’s thighs, Gerard finally, _finally_ , gets his hand against Frank’s dick, tracing the line with an appraising grin. 

Frank inhales sharply once Gerard finally gets a hand on the bare skin of his dick. “Sorry,” he gasps, as his stomach jolts, “I haven’t really done this in a while.” 

It’s an admission that he’s only a little hesitant to make, but Gerard just says, “Completely understandable,” and moves in to rub his knuckles against the back of Frank’s hand where it rests on the bed in a comforting, intimate gesture. “Me either, actually,” he admits.

Leaning down, Frank takes Gerard’s face between his hands and brings him in for another kiss. Gerard hums into his mouth and makes hungry noise whenever Frank ends it. Frank shoves at Gerard’s jacket, his flannel and he silently thanks whatever deity is listening that Gerard decided to forgo an undershirt because he’s more than grateful for the slate of pale skin. He can’t help but rake his fingers down Gerard’s chest, marveling at the wake of red lines. It sends Frank’s stomach blazing and he says, “Okay, up, up, c’mon, please.”

Gerard scrambles up onto the bed, lying nestled just to Frank’s side, draping half-over him as he bites and kisses at Frank’s mouth. His hand slides down to stroke Frank’s cock, already glistening at the tip, and Frank gasps against Gerard’s cheek as he pulls away for breath. The hard line of Gerard’s dick is pressed against Frank’s hip and he can’t help but moan when Gerard’s hips stutter against him. 

On his side, Frank fumbles with Gerard’s pants until he gets them undone, gets a hand on him. It’s silky soft in texture, a hot thickness in Frank’s palm. Stroking each other off is satisfying until it just really isn’t, and Frank’s already so close that he’d embarrass himself if he hadn’t already said, “Wait, wait, wait, wanna blow you.” 

It doesn’t actually help matters, getting his mouth on Gerard’s dick, because the noise that comes out of Gerard’s mouth is pure filth and it turns out he’s a talker – “Yeah, _fuck_ , you look so good, oh my _god_.” – and he isn’t shy about getting his hands into Frank’s hair to put him where he wants. That has Frank groaning, grinding against his mattress. Gerard’s thumb comes to rest against the corner of Frank’s mouth, hot against the swollen seam where his dick slides and when Frank looks up, Gerard’s eyes are half-open, watching Frank with something like awe. Frank uses that opportunity to slide down as far as he can go, lips meeting his thumb and forefinger right at the base, holding it until Gerard’s mouth drops open and a squeaky whine ekes out.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh _fuck_ ,” Gerard grits out as Frank pulls off to breathe, laving at the spot beneath the head of his dick, rolling Gerard’s balls in his other palm. “ _Shit_. I’m gonna –”

Frank sucks him down just far enough to feel the twitch of Gerard’s cock as he spills, body lurching with each new spurt. The taste is almost sweet and Frank barely has enough time to enjoy it before Gerard’s hauling him up by the backs of his arms, flipping Frank onto his back on the mattress, rucking up the comforter. His fingers press into Frank’s wrists and his mouth is hot.

“Jesus fucking Christ that was fast and I’m not even sorry,” Gerard rambles between kisses and hitching, shuddery breaths, “That was so fucking good. _Jesus_ , Frank.” 

Gerard slides down Frank’s body, hands and mouth burning trails as he gets right to business. Frank’s mouth feels raw and bruised, yet he can’t help but bite his bottom lip and it makes the good-hurt only that much better. He’s groaning and scraping his fingers down his own chest, tweaking at his nipples and scratching down the notches of his ribs as Gerard sucks him off. It’s only a matter of minutes before he’s straining, writhing, breathlessly warning Gerard before he shoots – and it’s good, ten times better when Gerard pulls off before he’s completely finished so that it hits his lower lip. Frank’s still shaking five minutes later, long after Gerard has licked him clean, tucked him back into his dirty slacks. 

They share a few moments of comfortable silence before Frank deliriously says, “Happy fucking birthday to me.”

The way Gerard laughs and curls in to hide his face against Frank’s side is reassuring.

Frank changes into loose sweats and a plain sleep shirt before he ushers Gerard into the kitchen. He offers a beer, to which Gerard declines and instead accepts a glass of water, and Frank settles across from him at the table. They talk over a large bowl of candy, wrappers littering the tabletop, until Frank’s struggling to stay awake.

He offers to share his bed for the night and nods like he understands when Gerard opts out, claiming that he has chores to get done all day tomorrow and if he stayed then he wouldn’t want to leave. It makes Frank feel warm and fuzzy until he wakes up in the morning to cold sheets.

 

*

 

November had never really been Frank’s favorite month. It used to signify the true beginning of his sick season with the way the cold finally settled in like an inescapable smog no matter how high many layers he donned. Now, though, it just means the onset of holiday season and an overwhelming awareness of how quiet his house is. He’s never wanted a huge family more.

The upside, however, is the fact that November is full of “Professional Days” which mean sacred days off for Frank and a quick passage into the beginning of December. Though it’s been just over four weeks, Frank finds that the silence of his house is still unsettling and there’s only so much blasting music or blaring the television can do. Some nights it’s bad enough that Frank drinks more beers than he should, curling up with his dogs and falling asleep on the couch only to wake up hungover with a crick in his neck or a twinge in his back and a massive sense of regret. 

Gerard helps, for the most part, as sex (if not just their conversations) makes for a good distraction. His hands are always so sure and his mouth is surer. He always leaves, though, and the following mornings Frank is just as empty as he felt before.

Work isn’t too bad. Lindsey and Jessicka generally have enough gossip or weekend stories to keep Frank’s mind occupied during lunchtime and Bob piles on the work during operating hours. It isn’t until a little after three, when he’s called all of the buses, and Frank remembers that Carter won’t be running up to sit in his Commander’s Chair that he feels shitty again.

Try as he might, Frank can’t get Daniela to answer any of his phone calls. He understands that she wants to have a clean break and all, but he thinks that she has to know how unfeasible it is in reality. If Frank feels this lost, he can only imagine how Corey and Curtis and Carter are feeling.

Weirdly enough, one night as he’s settled in with his dogs and his Kindle, Frank’s phone rings and he’s scrambling to answer it because it says _Daniela Wilson_ and – “Hello?” he says, “Dani? It’s been like a month and you’re just now calling me back.”

“Frank?” he hears, and his heart swells because that’s Carter’s voice. At that, Corey and Curtis chime in with, “Hi, Frank!” and Frank doesn’t even try to hold back the happy sob.

“Hi, boys,” he says, sniffing.

“We miss you, Frank.”

“I miss you, too. So, so, _so_ much. It’s so quiet around here without you three arguing and wrestling and being little hooligans. Do you guys like your new schools?” 

Curtis hums something vaguely affirmative, while Carter gives a vehement, “ _No!_ ” and then goes on to say, “Mama won’t let us come visit you. She said you live too far ‘way and and and –” There’s a clatter and then Frank hears a harsh tone, slamming doors, before he hears his cousin come on the line, sounding beyond exasperated as she says, “Frank.”

Swallowing thickly, Frank replies, “Dani. What the fuck, dude?”

She sighs and it’s not hard to imagine the way she’s pinching the bridge of her nose, shaking her head, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry, Frank,” she eventually says. “It’s for the best. I know it’s hard, and the boys totally hate me for it – thanks a lot – but I think in the end it’ll –”

“ _No,_ ” Frank says, and he doesn’t quite recognize his voice, “it’s not for the best. You can’t just cut me out of their life like that. They’re my family. It’s not fair –”

“Don’t you fucking dare talk to me about _fair_ ,” she spits. _Yeah, okay…maybe that was a poor choice of words,_ he thinks, _Not fair would be being locked up for over a month for a crime you didn’t commit._ “I didn’t – you know what? Corey had never been to the zoo before…” She sounds so pissed. “Curtis hadn’t ever been to a hockey game and Carter –” Her voice breaks and Frank feels so suddenly guilty. “He won’t even let me hug him. He refuses to talk to me and anytime I overhear him talking with Curtis, he’s talking about _you_.”

“I’m –”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. Just…don’t.” Dani sighs again. “I swear to god I’m not trying to be an awful human being. Do you really think I wanted to just pick up and leave Jersey? It was my home, too, you know. But do you know how hard it is to get work when everyone knows your face from the fucking ten o’clock news?”

Frank stays silent.

Dani doesn’t prompt him. Her voice is quiet but fierce when she says, “I just want my boys to be _mine_ again and I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“Okay,” Frank says hoarsely. She’s in the middle of saying goodbye when Frank thinks of something, “But w-wait, just a second.” He pauses, looks at his phone and sees that the line hasn’t disconnected. “I – Carter. I know something that might help.” 

He’s quiet until he hears an impatient, “Well?” from her.

“There’s – he’s totally in love with this little girl named Turner and she’s in Boston every other weekend. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’ll mean the world to him if you would let him see her. I don’t know her mom’s name, but if I could get that from G – her dad, maybe you could meet up in the park or something.”

Again, Dani sighs. “Fine,” she says, “Text me once you have it.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Frank doesn’t flinch as the line beeps as it disconnects and the picture fades into his home screen. It’s not much, but maybe it’s a start. Maybe Dani won’t hold the favoritism against him and maybe someday he’ll get to see the boys again.

 

*

 

Gerard is more than willing to help Frank out, encouraging him with, “Oh, shit. That’s a great idea! Turner’ll be so happy.” He sends Frank the contact information, which he then forwards to Dani who responds with a simple _Thanks_. She doesn’t answer his subsequent phone call.

That weekend, he shows up unannounced (but definitely not unwelcome) on Friday evening and they play video games and order pizza and absolutely do not talk about how all of the highest scores are under Curtis’s gamertag.

Later, after they’ve cleaned themselves up – because apparently Gerard is a huge fan of messy blowjobs – and Frank’s kissed Gerard goodbye, Frank breaks out the rum and settles in for a nice, long weekend.

 

*

 

With a heavy sigh, Frank resolves to do something constructive rather than drink himself into another evening of ignoring cartoons or the little plastic spoons in his dishwasher or the patterned socks in his drier or the dog-eared copy of _Harry Potter_. He texts, _Moping has to be better than apathy, right?_ to Gerard and doesn’t really expect an answer back.

Only Gerard calls and when he asks what’s wrong, Frank blubbers out about how they were never his in the first place and he shouldn’t have let himself get so attached. And Jesus, Gerard’s always full of exactly what Frank needs to hear. The “they’re still your family” and “but they’re your boys, too” and the soft, “hey, come over so I can hug you better” work wonders.

So preemptively Frank packs up – wallet, sweats, Kindle, toothbrush – and heads over, grateful to be free of the too-heavy silence and the disappointed looks his dogs keep giving him.

When he gets there, following his GPS until he comes upon a suburb that’s a hell of a lot fancier than his own, he sees movement from a curtain. He parks along the curb and Gerard’s already coming out the front door, arms crossed over his chest and looking concerned, before Frank even has his car door shut.

He says, “C’mere, baby,” and wraps him in a hug, right there on the porch. Gerard holds him close, and Frank breathes him in, grateful for the difference, the distraction. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’d make you feel any better.”

“No,” Frank admits. 

“Okay.” Gerard rubs at Frank’s back, soothing him with the touch. “Alright, let’s move the pity-party inside. I think I have some cookie dough in the freezer.”

Gerard’s place is kind of ridiculously nice and Frank’s suddenly aware that he has no idea what the man does for a living. All this time he’s just kind of had a generic suit-and-tie job in his head, but he’d never thought to ask. It hadn’t ever seemed important. Gerard leads him into the kitchen, all stainless steel and a butcher’s block and industrial sized burners, and Frank sits at the island on a cushiony stool. (Sure enough, they do have the same refrigerator.) He watches Gerard set the oven to preheat, select a baking sheet from a low cabinet. 

“What do you even _do?_ ” Frank blurts, unable to contain his curiosity.

With a chuckle, Gerard mutters, “I was wondering when you’d ask,” into the fridge. He selects the double-chunk chocolate chip dough and sets it onto the counter. “I’m an artist. Well, writer now for the most part…officially anyway. I still paint and when I have the time.” Sifting through one of the drawers near the stove, he takes out a huge-ass knife and a cutting board from another drawer. “Have you ever heard of Dark Horse?”

Mulling it over for a bit, Frank eventually admits, “You know, it sounds really fucking familiar, but I can’t place it.” 

“It’s not massive or anything. I mostly work from home,” he says, smiling a bit as he starts chopping the dough into cookie-sized hunks. He offers one out to Frank and then bites on one himself. “I wrote _The Umbrella Academy._ ” 

The realization hits Frank like a fucking freight train. “ _Oh my god,_ ” he laughs, “No shit? Wow, how did I never pay attention to the author – I’ve read your stuff.” Frank pops the rest of the cookie dough into his mouth and gives an enthused, “ _Dude_. You won a fucking Eisner!” Because that shit is fucking rad.

Gerard kind of breezes over it like it’s not a big deal, so Frank doesn’t press it as much as he’d love to. Instead, they sit on Gerard’s oversized couch and munch on cookies as they talk about comics they grew up reading – but in an overwhelming rush of sadness, Frank thinks of little Corey in his Avengers pajamas and sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. His heart fucking _hurts._

Bless his fucking soul, though, Gerard just softly says, “Hey,” and pulls him in for a full-bodied hug. They lie side-by-side, curled around each other on the couch until Frank feels like he can breathe again and later, when Gerard whispers, “I want you to stay the night,” like it’s a big secret, something loosens, expands, and takes root in Frank’s chest.

It’s not the first time Frank’s felt it, but it is the first time he’s consciously thought, _I really love this guy._

He takes Frank by the hand into his bedroom, strips them both, pulls him close, kisses at Frank’s neck and chest until Frank’s gasping. Pulling Gerard up so they’re face to face, Frank looks him straight in the eye, sparkling and warm, and says, “I want you to fuck me.” Frank kisses him until Gerard’s rocking his hips against Frank’s, growing minutely more insistent. He mumbles, “Please,” into Gerard’s mouth and that’s all it takes for him to break.

Gerard’s gentle with his fingers at first, teasing Frank open slowly like he’s enjoying himself, all until Frank starts lifting his hips in counter rhythm, digging his fingers harder into Gerard’s calf muscles. After that, the urgency gets bumped up a notch or two, if the way Gerard breathes, “ _Shit_ ,” and mouths at Frank knee, fingers spreading and twisting and stretching Frank open more insistently. 

Frank tosses a condom packet down beside Gerard’s hip and says, “ _Please._ ”

“Yeah,” Gerard replies, “Yeah, okay, okay, I’ve got you.” He uses his teeth to open it, rolls it efficiently, and kneels up between Frank’s legs. He leans up, grabs one of the pillows and Frank wordlessly lifts his hips so Gerard can fold it up beneath him. Hands around Frank’s ankles, Gerard says, “Shoulders? Or against your chest?” He laughs breathlessly and says, “Fucking hell, Frank,” when Frank bends his knees until the tops of his thighs are nearly flat against his belly. 

He can only imagine Gerard’s view. His eyes keep flickering from Frank’s face to where he’s stretched open, sidling closer. The heat between them is immense, and Frank gives an uncontrollable shiver when Gerard thumbs at his asshole. “Gonna fuck me now?” Frank asks. “I’m ready; you don’t have to – _oh._ ”

The head of Gerard’s cock slides hot and thick against him, Gerard guiding it from Frank’s crack up to beneath his balls with one hand until he finally, _finally_ , pushes in at the next give. It’s the good kind of pressure and Frank bears down against it until Gerard’s flush against him, hips trembling. One of Gerard’s hands comes to rest against the back of Frank’s leg and after a few breathless, rhythm establishing thrusts, the other comes down to join.

Not even a handful of thrusts in, Gerard nails Frank’s prostate and he only vaguely sees Gerard smirk at the noise it elicits. “Good?” he asks. Frank nods and lets his own hands come down to tangle in the sheets. He stares sightlessly at the ceiling as Gerard purposefully misses, closes his eyes at the next intentional graze, lets his hips fall wide, legs coming down until he can dig his heels into Gerard’s back.

It makes the angle deeper with the way Gerard’s able to basically pull Frank into his lap. Their skin slides together in the most delicious friction and Frank finds something fascinating in the flush of exertion crawling up Gerard’s chest to make its home in Gerard’s cheeks. He wears it well.

So well, in fact, that Frank rocks forward until Gerard’s falling back, Frank settled atop his hips. Frank bears down, hips working until the angle is just what he fucking needs, and he asks, “This okay?”

At Gerard’s nod, Frank leans in to rest his palms against Gerard’s chest, digging in with his fingers and hitching his hips as Gerard’s roll up to meet him. It feels great until Frank misses the feeling of Gerard’s skin – and Gerard seems to concur, because then he says, “Wanna _feel_ you.” Frank pulls off and crawls onto the mattress beside him, curls onto his side, facing away. Gerard presses against him, guiding himself back inside and smothering his groan into Frank’s back. His lips are brand-hot against Frank’s neck and his shoulders, and his skin feels so good.

It’s the kind of angle that makes Frank feel like he could go on getting fucked for hours. But when Gerard’s left hand skims up from his ribs to the top of his shoulder, trails down from bicep to forearm, to twine his fingers between Frank’s and curl them against Frank’s chest, he knows he’s a lost cause.

Gerard rocks into him just a fraction harder and Frank’s _done_ , shuddering hard and keening out a moan as he comes. Frank isn’t quite sure when it happened, but Gerard’s hand is there, pulling him through it with sure, guiding strokes as he whispers, “I’ve got you,” into Frank’s hair. 

Sensitivity isn’t a problem with this position, so Frank says, “Don’t stop. Please, come on Gerard. Come on, please,” and he knows he sounds desperate, but he says, “Wanna feel it when you come in me,” anyway. He laces their fingers together again, bringing them up until he can mouth at Gerard’s knuckles and bears down, clenching tight – and _that it’s_. Groaning as a sympathetic aftershock rocks through him, Frank keeps kissing at Gerard’s hand until he’s spent, gasping against Frank’s back.

Frank’s not even sure when Gerard gets up, but between one blink and the next, Frank’s clean and curled against Gerard’s chest and far away from the wet spot he made. 

 

*

 

Throughout December, days get a little easier to bear with the help of Lindsey and Jessicka at lunchtime and texts from Gerard. 

Even Bryar notices that Frank’s kind of a broken shell of a dude and he lets up on the angry eyebrows and the pointed zen-breathing. One day before Christmas break, though, Bob calls him into his office and tells him that since the semester’s almost over and he’s improved so much since the beginning, he’d like to offer Frank that Assistant Kindergarten Teacher position for afternoons during the spring. Frank gratefully accepts.

Eventually, the dogs stop whining and looking at Frank like he’s a piece of shit when Carter doesn’t follow him inside and he finally gets up the guts to go into the spare bedrooms. There are still reminders of the boys all over the fucking place and it _hurts_ – only it’s more like a dull, hollow feeling than the sharp shooting pain that it had been. Frank figures that’s a start in the recovery direction. He’s able to take out a box and start gathering things they’d left, storing it in the closet in the hallway.

Most evenings, Frank’s able to talk on the phone to Gerard after Turner’s in bed, and then the weekends that she’s down in Boston with her mother, Frank ends up in Gerard’s bed until late Sunday afternoon (only with breaks to go home to feed the dogs and let them outside). Gerard never says it’s anything more than a distraction method, but Frank sees the way he looks at him and doesn’t say a contrary word.

It works.

 

*

 

Until it kind of doesn’t.

Because Frank wants more. He wants to be able to come over after work, to maybe take Turner home or out for ice cream, to be able to hold Gerard’s hand in front of her and tell Gerard about how he’s helping fill the empty, silent space that’s had him wrecked for weeks on end.

Being in the awkward phase between “we’ve talked about how having kids around means serious relationships only” and “yes, this means we are in a serious relationship” gets old really fast. So Saturday morning, after Frank has woken up to Gerard pressed against his back, rocking his hips languidly as the sun filters in through the curtains, Frank pointedly says something about having to go since he’s done his booty-call duties.

“Funny,” Gerard retorts, narrowing his eyes. 

At Frank’s silence, his brows draw together and then his expression flattens into something mostly neutral. 

“So, I don’t do casual.” The way Gerard says it is pretty fucking casual, though, and it’d be misleading if Frank couldn’t measure the care in his voice, in the way his eyes are focused on Frank’s, or see how the lines around Gerard’s mouth are tense. “I don’t do casual, so I can’t keep – you can’t, unless you’re. She comes first. She will _always_ come first and that won’t change.”

For a few seconds, Frank’s quiet, considering. He’s fucking in this, that’s not the issue. The problem lies in answering too quickly and sounding too eager because then Gerard will accuse Frank of jumping in without testing the waters. They’ve been fucking around – for lack of a better term – for nearly two months and Frank has been more than ready to put a name to it. 

“If we do choose to proceed, then I’d have to tell her. And if she doesn’t like it, then that’s it.” His mouth forms a hard line and it looks like he’d like anything else but to mean what he’s saying. “I need to know that you understand that.”

Nodding, Frank says, “Yeah. I get it.” A little slower, but not hesitant in the least, he says, “You know…completely objectively, I’d always wanted kids. I wanted kids and a family and I never really thought that I’d get that chance.” He takes a deep breath. “We’ve never been casual. This whole fucking time. Even when I had the boys, you were there and I was invested. You know that; you’ve got to know that.”

Gerard looks a little watery, swiping a hand through his hair, over his face, before he tugs Frank in. His arms are strong and his chest is warm, even shuddering, as he buries his face in Frank’s hair. “It’s been like two and a half months.”

Though he doesn’t say it, Frank thinks that’s kind of nice that Gerard’s counting from the literal beginning. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Frank says, trying to ease some of the heaviness between them. “We’re really fucking invested and it’s too soon and yadda yadda.” He sighs, breathing in the charcoal and lavender and turpentine scent of Gerard’s clothes. “We don’t have to jump in and tell her right away. We can slow down if you want. I’m not asking you for marriage vows and Christmas plans.”

“And I’m not saying that I don’t want to try this with you,” Gerard says, voice desperate.

“Good,” Frank says, giving Gerard’s middle one last squeeze before he pulls back far enough to look him in the face. “Glad that’s settled.” He feels the ‘but’ coming and tries to brace himself for it, clutching tightly at Gerard’s back like that’ll do any good.

“But we’re not ready to be like _serious_ -serious, you know? _I’m_ not ready for that.”

Frank chokes down a sigh. He knows _he_ isn’t ready for a serious relationship either, not so soon after being such an emotional wreck, but he _wants_ to be. He wants to for Gerard – because he knows, and he doesn’t know _how_ exactly, that this guy is it for him. Gerard’s kind of it for Frank and he knows it with a certainty that’s almost frightening. Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in him, but he’s kind of thought, “This is the guy I’m supposed to be with,” since day one. Hell, Lindsey and Jessicka can attest to that. 

“Okay,” he says eventually. It hurts. “Do you – do you see me in your future?” Frank’s heart feels heavy, trembling and on the verge of beating right out of his chest. “Would you _want_ me in your future? In Turner’s?”

“I…” Gerard says. He scans Frank’s face, swallowing so hard that Frank can hear it. “I want to say ‘yes,’ believe me, I do. You’re kind of the greatest thing I can imagine for us. You’re so kind and thoughtful and willing to help and you’re so fucking good with kids. It’s just – it’s too soon to say that. I like you, Frank – I really, _really_ like you. I just…I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, Frank swallows his feelings and his voice is barely a rasp when he says, “Don’t apologize.” Frank presses a kiss to the side of Gerard’s mouth and sits up. He pushes the sheet from his waist, stoops to gather his clothes from the floor. He tugs on his jeans, his shirt, his baggy sweater. He tugs his beanie on, ignoring the tickle of his hair curling against the nape of his neck. His jacket is somewhere near the front door.

Something in him tells him that he can’t leave on this note, though, and when he turns back, Gerard’s looking up at him with tears in his eyes, gnawing on his lower lip.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” Gerard asks.

Huffing a humorless laugh, Frank offers a half-smile and shakes his head. “No. I’m not,” he answers honestly. “It just…hurts. I get it, though.”

Gerard scrambles over toward him, sheets bunching around his thighs. He reaches up, tugs Frank down until he can get his hands on Frank’s face, pull him in for a kiss. It’s sharp with teeth and sweet and heavy, Gerard’s fingers digging into the back of his neck, the little dip behind his ear and his thumb pressed beneath Frank’s chin. 

“Hey,” Frank says softly after they’ve pulled apart. He presses his forehead to Gerard’s. “Don’t think I’m going anywhere.”

With a nod, Gerard whispers, “I know.”

Frank drives home.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Anchor to Seabed, Plane to Sky (A Fanmix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/946611) by [abtagrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abtagrl/pseuds/abtagrl)




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